In 1999 Swiss established his self in the music industry as a pirate radio Deejay, acclaimed as the first to spin a record on the notorious delight F.M, home of the infamous So Solid crew, this is where his foundations where laid. Although Swiss is the younger brother of Mega Man; a founding member of So Solid, he worked hard to prove himself worthy amongst the elites to become apart of the select members.
By the year 2000 Swiss was swiftly honing his skills as a DJ/producer, fusing his diverse musical influences, he helped inadvertently create what would reshape and remould the sound of British youth culture. Planting the seeds of what would become the U.K ‘s very own, Grime. Managing to produce three tracks on So Solids seminal, ground-breaking platinum selling album ‘They Don’t Know’ it can easily be said that Swiss along with So Solid created their own genre brand DNA representing a cross between Hip Hop/Garage and grime. Their innovative and ground-breaking accomplishments won them many accolades including a Brit award (1) Mobo (3) and many others.
2001 was the year when the world knew Swiss was more than just a deejay/producer, he featured on fellow band members oxide and neutrino’s single ‘Rap Dis’. Hitting number 12 in the national charts, his memorable introduction to the song placed him among the elite of emcees for his exquisite wordplay. “All Over” was the debut single by So Solids Lisa Maffia. Where Swiss featured and assisted helping it spend three weeks in the top ten of UK Singles Chart, reaching number 2 with a total of 16 weeks in the charts. Swiss also wrote and produced on Lisa’s ‘First Lady’ Album. In this same year Swiss teamed up with band member Asher D to work on his album, two singles were released of which Swiss featured on both and produced one. On the same project, Jay Z’s, Beenie siegel and Memphis bleek teamed up with So Solids Asher D and Swiss to create ‘Solid Roc’, a four way battle of the Emcees Hip Hop gem.
Swiss and his Musical peers were at the brunt of ridicule and misrepresentation by the media. In 2003 Swiss wrote So Solid’s first release ‘Broken Silence’ from their anticipated second album. The song represented and spoke out against the media and government prejudice they had faced. It is the only known top 40 single in the UK to contain a 17-letter word – ‘institutionalized’. After touring Europe with Christina Aguilera, Swiss began building songs toward his first solo album in 2005, it materialized under the title ‘Pain N Muziq’ where his debut single ‘Cry’ became ‘the peoples number one’. After gaining much underground success heavily supported by Radio 1, BBC 1xtra, Kiss FM, choice FM and many others, when the video aired on MTV Base in 2006 it became a U.K Hip Hop Classic. Arguably the best song a UK Hip hop artist has ever written. During promoting the release of ‘Cry’ Swiss opened up show’s for many U.S Artists including Immortal Technique, Mobb Deep, Jada Kiss, Ja rule, Dead prez and Legend Krs 1. Swiss encountered heavy resistance from the underground UK Hip Hop scene when making his transition as a soloist, because at the time Rap was seen as a totally different genre from the garage world Swiss was familiar too. To prove himself worthy he made his rounds doing various classic freestyle performances on various mainstream radio stations, one of them being Choice FM (Capital Xtra), where he would go head to head with upcoming artist Lowkey. In Forty minutes of raw unapologetic bars making it one of the greatest of UK hip hop exhibits. Some of these classic freestyles were compiled and placed on to Swiss’s ‘The Real Mixtape’. Swiss’ self help book ‘Spot The Difference’ was published in 2008, a motivational message to black youth giving historical and practical lessons to empower oneself. He would do many presentations at various universities simultaneously becoming a co_ordinater of N.E.E.T.(Not in education, Employment, and Training) project Rapargram. Swiss has unofficially released a few songs and done many performances in the last few years, in 2014 he released the controversial ‘Nigger’ an educational masterpiece in the words of BBC 1xtra “This song stopped the internet…the most important hip hop song in the last 15 years”. Its part of a Documentary of the same title set for release at the end of the year.
