For someone who dislikes being called an elder statesman, Blak Twang is looking remarkably statesmanlike – in hip-hop terms anyway.

Rocking a new era fitted cap, patterned hoodie and a gold microphone rope chain, the MC, born Tony Olabode, is reclining regally on a red leather couch in his living room. A picture of his kids is on the wall across from him.
He looks like he justifies the word most often ascribed to his music – authoritative. Not that he’s entirely comfortable with the label, mind.

“As long as it’s not misconstrued or misinterpreted as being bossy,” he says, one eye on the Man City game on the flat-screen TV. “I’m authoritative in that I know what I’m talking about, and I’m quite steadfast in my opinions. As long as it’s for the right reasons; it can be misconstrued as egotistical. I’m not that kind of person. I guess my voice helps a bit!” he laughs.

That deep, self-assured, quite cocky voice has got Twang a lot of places since it first dropped firestarters like ‘Red Letters' and ‘Shooosh’ in the mid-90s, even if his debut album, Dettwork South East, hit the barriers like the train company it was named after. In the twelve years since then, Twang has built up a reputation for rocking stages – and not just in the UK. The many, many countries he’s visited and rocked out in seem a world away from his comfortable South London family quarters.

“I have to make sure that I observe my surroundings,” he says when asked about how he works the worldwide crowd. “I can incorporate that into my stage show… If you know a little bit about the town or city or whatever, the local football team or something that happened, if you take an interest in where you’re going, you can have a nice little stage show that is personal to you.

“I was in Zanzibar just recently, and it was crazy, because in Nairobi, Dar Es Salaam, everyone spoke English really cool – but in Zanzibar everyone was on their Swahili. I go on stage and I was talking to the crowd and everyone was like, no idea! I had to learn a couple of words there and then and the guy had to reintroduce me! They really got into it.”

Twang admits that although he loves being on the road, he does miss his home comforts – and admits that phone bills home can be “quite devastating”. He’ll be home for a little while though, kicking off a UK tour to promote his new album. Closely followed by Europe and, if he has his way, Africa.

The album in question is his fourth, Speaking from Xperience. It is, for the most part, a valedictory address for Twang: a statement of where he is and how he got there. It’s a very good album, if a little bloated, and it is very late. Tourdates last spoke to Twang in August 2007, when he assured us the album was just around the corner. It has taken more than a year to appear, label troubles having dogged the release. Xperience indeed.

Twang’s always been noted for addressing social issues just as effectively as spitting a hot verse over a club track, often combining them (do we even need to mention ‘So Rotten’?). Nowhere are these two strengths better shown than on Xperience. From the get-go, everything’s in focus mode: ‘We Gonna Win’ is a monster opener laced with a booming drum track and Twang in full, thundering spit-mode.

The track, as we talk about it a bit more, seems a little more meaningful to Twang – as much about social ills as about his own impact on UK hip-hop history.

“You meet a lot of new artists that say to you, yeah man, you’re a big inspiration to me. I’ve left my evidence of my influences around, that’s why I said I’m still relevant,” he muses, channelling the song lyrics. “We’re all kind of guilty of going on some blogs and reading some things, and sometimes I’m like wow, they forgot about me already! Some of the artists that are flavour of the month, you’re like, actually, Twang kinda did that five years ago. It’s me stroking my own ego a little bit, but whatever!”

He is stroking his ego, but it’s hard not to get on board, particularly when you hear tracks like ‘Help Dem Lord’, ‘How Long’ and ‘Legends’, a frenetic movie-score song with Sway and Twang doing the tag-team thing. It should sound monster on stage. Twang mentions he might get a certain Roots Manuva on the remix.

It’s an interesting point that Twang and Roots are both dropping their fourth albums at roughly the same time (the latter unleashing the dubby, tripped-out Slime and Reason). The two came up together, collaborating on more than one record, and both have a serious standing as legends in their own right. Twang insists their concurrent releases weren’t planned that way. “I always wanted a time when you could have a whole bunch of releases from a bunch of legends on one day, but right now we just don’t have the infrastructure (in the UK). Look at the West Coast back in the day! Roots and myself releasing at the same time was not planned!” he laughs.

Pushed, he expands on the infrastructure remark. “I feel like we’ve got so much to achieve. Some of us are doing alright, but there is still so much work to do. It’s almost like, we’re still on the first step, the foundations. The foundation is still being laid.”

He’s clearly managed to lay a foundation for himself. The home, the comfortable family life, the kids and the black BMW out front are the reason Twang still rocks the mic on the daily. He maintains he’s got more albums in him (six more, according to a brash claim on one earlier track) and although he’d never admit it, he’s authoritative enough for that to hold some weight.