IT'S been a big weekend for Liverpool and the big guns have been wheeled out accordingly. After the fun of the People’s Launch of 2008 on Friday there was Saturday’s huge arena gig.

Ringo Starr? Check. The RLPO? Check. Echo and the Bunnymen? Check. RiUvEn? What! Last time I checked him out to write about him things had gone a bit quiet on the RiUvEn front. His best stuff had been taken off Youtube and I thought he might have just have given it all up for a life on the dole. So his participation in an arena show of all things – and proof he hadn’t died in some tragic scally accident – came as a bit of a surprise. Quite how he went down with the crowd is another thing entirely. It's the only thing that's made me wish I was there.

What’s this got to do with comedy? Well, on a good day I’m 99% sure the Toxteth-based hip-hopper is supposed to be funny, in a Goldie Lookin' Chain sort of way. But sometimes I do like to imagine he knows not what he does.

RiUvEn made his name eschewing the virtues of our fair city in cult anthem Tha L.I.V (“Get yer arse down to Liverpool, yer tit, I'm tellin' yer it's a beast, get onto it”, and “Capital of Culture, so get told” are two of the more sweetly threatening rhymes). He proudly mentions Liverpool’s galleries and museums, although he also recommends drinking at the now-defunct 051, but “if yer wanna drink piss, go the Swan”, which always does it for me. The tourist board could have some fun with all that if they wanted to.

Other treats still available on his Myspace page include Goths are not Boss, a rap about the gangs of teenagers who hang around outside the law courts in town, and Lily Rich Kid Allen, which made him relatively infamous for a while with his rant against the “posh snob taking the piss ripping off the Specials”.

“My record label have been telling me to try and tone my lyrics down a bit,” you can find him pondering on a Myspace forum. Needless to say, he can be appallingly rude. “Apparently the public arent as into stories about beating up goths and getting jiggy with milf as i thought theyd be.”[sic]

The resulting album, apparently titled I’m Only Messin or Am I, will be out in April, he says.
Check him out ad libbing Tha L.I.V to a crowd of scally kids in Sefton park here:

• Post to:
•  del.icio.us
•  Digg
•  Newsvine
•  Nowpublic
•  Reddit