Think of gangster rap and hip-hop and Tyrone might not be the first location which would come to mind.
But two local artists are now trying to change that, with the release of a new song and video filmed in the Dunavon Park area of Dungannon.
Philip Hughes, 30 and Garrett Donaghy, 28, have formed rap group Homegrown, and with the release of new music hope to inspire more people from the area to get into the rap music scene.
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Both working in engineering for local firms, the pair said they first started as a bit of a laugh before later turning into something more serious.
“We decided about two years ago that we were going to give it a go and just started writing hip hop,” Phillip told Belfast Live.
“We both work in engineering but have always been into gigging and making music and stuff like that so we would love to turn it into a full-time job.
“It’s early stages for us but we would love to start a hip-hop community from Tyrone and Dungannon.
“There are definitely rappers and stuff out there but it seems to be centralised in Belfast at the minute. We’d like to see rappers from Tyrone, from Armagh and all over.”
Garrett adds: “There was a time where we would have just sent each other wee voice notes slagging each other and messing about, but as time went on we started to get a wee bit more serious about it.
“We watched a Biggie Smalls documentary on Netflix and I just decided I wanted to give it a go.”
Homegrown’s new song ‘Well’ dropped with a slick new video released on their YouTube account where Philiip and Garrett rap about their everyday lives.
“It’s a vision of things through our own eyes,” Garrett says.
“It’s mostly just an introduction to us, the majority of the song is kind of about us getting away from our normal working jobs and trying to make this our full-time gig.”
Phillip adds that he hopes the release of the song is just the start for the pair, who hope to start doing gigs locally in the months ahead.
“It was all filmed in Dunavon Park in Dungannon where I live, we did it all in the estate and my house,” he said.
“We have a few songs written and put out on Soundcloud, we want to start doing gigs now and performing live.
“There’s nothing really in the local scene that we can see at the minute, there are some open mic nights but we will be branching out down in Belfast as well
“There’s a growing scene out there, we are hoping to get down to Belfast and record an EP as we are just recording everything ourselves at the minute.”
The full video of Homegrown's song 'Well' can be viewed on their YouTube channel here.
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