There are those in South Wales who are no doubt scratching their heads in wonder that the words: “You’re not from Newport,” could ever be used as an insult. Well, thanks to the wonders of the world wide web and what we are contractually obliged to call a viral hit they are now.
It all started when a young man by the name of Jay-Z (that’s silly man, it’s just initials, but I understand said two letter rapper is married to the wondrous Bouncy Knowles) got together in 2009 with a young woman named Alicia Keys (who plays the piano and sings – piano keys, see, we likes it) to hymn the praises of a small city in the colonies called New York.
Here they are:
So far, so not Welsh.
Then – all of a sudden – it was 2010 and someone posted a link to me on Facebook, I clicked on it (along with hundreds of thousands of others) and saw Newport State of Mind, a reworking of Empire State of Mind that sang the praises of “the small Welsh town of Newport”, and did so with some style and verve and with a lot of inaccuracies about said small Welsh town (City actually).
It went viral, a rather unpleasantly medical way of saying everyone got in touch with their friends and said, “have a look at this, it’s good.”
Made by London-based director M-J Delaney and featuring rapper Alex Warren and singer Terema Wainwright the video boasted good production values and the song was funny – even if it did rather expand Newport’s sphere of influence to the whole of south Wales and in particular Cardiff with its references to the Millennium Stadium, Craig Bellamy and the Welsh Assembly.
It got on the news and everything but, sadly, EMI weren’t happy that their copyright had been breached and have had it pulled, although you can still find live performances, like this one:
Next out of the Newport traps was Welsh web-phenomenon and finest thespian of his generation (self-declared), David Garland Jones. In a bare-faced attempt to score the sort of viewer numbers the original parody of Empire State had won Garland Jones appropriated Bachman Turner Overdrive’s You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet, to wonder at the mysterious beauties of Denbighshire’s (mispronounced) county town Ruthin.
Here he is, doing just that:
Finally, the true voice of Newport came to the rescue of their home town as Goldie Looking Chain members Rhys and Eggsy recorded a putting-the-record-straight response, You’re Not From Newport. Which is here:
Where it will all end is anybody’s guess, and I wouldn’t know, because I’m not from Newport.
