1 - Distraction Pieces

Like, I suspect, the majority of Brits who were teenagers in the mid '00s I was first introduced to the work of rapper Scroobius Pip through his seminal collaboration with Dan le Sac, Thou Shalt Always Kill. Though I now think it comes across as trying a bit too hard with its sanctimonious tone and early trash-rap mood, at the time it seemed to fit in perfectly with the world view of a generation of indie and emo kids who thought they had the arts all figured out. "Thou shalt not make repetitive generic music" seemed to us the most brilliantly witty indictment of the admittedly pretty awful pop music that permeated the airwaves of the time and kept what we considered real music out of the spotlight.

But music moved on, and so did I.

Then, about five years on, I rediscovered him and found that there was a vast back catalogue of great material that I had missed out on. While the that same world view that I never quite agreed with remained, it was applied to the gamut of the human experience, in particular as it pertained to modern British society. And I realised that the man had a brilliant talent for words.

So when I saw, thanks to the occasionally good Kindle recommendations emails that Amazon bombard me with, that Scroobius Pip had written a book, I was interested. When I saw that it was in fact a series of interviews with various creative types on such varying topics as politics, the arts and science, I thought it could be worth a look. And since, as one Amazon reviewer pointed out, it was currently on sale for less than the price of a pint, I decided it would be a good way to kick off the first year in which I attempted dry January.

As it transpired, Distraction Pieces is in fact a collection of transcripts from Pip's iTunes podcast of the same name. For those who have been regular listeners, there is not much new here. But as I said, I had never been a particularly close follower of his work and wasn't even aware that the podcast existed.

The ordering by theme, rather than interviewee, keeps the book flowing and introductions to each section by Pip himself help to give more of an insight into his own views, as the guests are allowed the lion's share of each conversation. Bringing together an interesting mix of personalities ranging from Frank Turner, Amanda Palmer and Killer Mike from the world of music, Romesh Ranganathan and Rufus Hound from comedy and writers Alan Moore and Jon Ronson, Pip provides merely the occasional nudge to steer his interviews into various directions. Police brutality, the creative process and the role of the arts in modern society are all covered, as are death, independent cinema and magic.

While it would perhaps have been more interesting to see a few guests with opinions that conflicted with those of the interviewer, Distraction Pieces remains a brilliant insight into the minds of some of the more highbrow creative types around today, their view of the world around them, and their view of themselves.

As a teenager, I thought I had the arts figured out; now I know that isn't the case at all. But it is reassuring to see that the artists themselves are still trying to figure things out.

4/5. Not sure if I'll do ratings, but that's what this gets.