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Full house at 'The Adventures of Simply Andy',
Mermaid Theatre, London 5th September 2009

It probably won’t come as a huge surprise to anyone that many UK artists possess additional (and often, quite impressive) skills beyond what they end up being famous for.

Guvna B is actually quite a dab hand with production software, Noel Robinson's rather good on the keyboards (despite his deserved rep as a guitar wiz), Jay Ess and Tryumf do their own creative artwork and - for those in the know - video editor, director and producer Shabazz (he of the highly potent Uprise movement) used to ply a rather decent trade as a Hip-Hop MC.

 
  Few embody the ‘manifold skill set artist’ profile as well the rather
  deceptively named 'Simply Andy'.
 
  Remarkably (and to the unvoiced irritation of us singly-gifted individuals), the
  potency of his talent seems undiluted by its variety: music (MCing, singer ,
  arrangement, production), TV (presenting, acting), comedy and entertainment…
 
And – in what must be an incredible feat of life-juggling – he seems to be relentlessly in demand as compére for events most evenings. His name can be found on a seemingly implausible array of Facebook event entries and printed flyers.

SIGNIFICANT
This all plays out against the backdrop of some rather significant
achievements already under his belt: his debut single ‘Bibles Bibles’ is
one of the first genuinely massive underground hits from this new
generation of UK gospel artists.

His debut EP, 'The Good News' (photo) is also an impressively varied
collection of tracks representative of the best the scene has to offer, and
- as far as I am concerned - a genuine landmark UK project.
 
LONG TIME COMING
I'd been trying to get a Simply Andy feature on UKGospel.com for well over a year, and finally sometime back in July or August 2009 we locked something down.

  At the time he'd just announced his one-man show, 'The Adventures of
  Simply Andy', which – while my rather busy life hugely limits the events I can
  attend – I’d instantly blocked out time to see.
 
  Unsurprisingly, it was well worth it. The Mermaid Theatre in London’s
  Blackfriars was virtually packed out, with other significant boxes duly
  ticked: attendees covered a range of age, gender and race.

  The show pretty much reflected the same approach to variety, with a rich
  combination of improvised and scripted routines. The DVD is out now,
  available both on UKGShop.com and Simply Andy's website. You choose.

UNSUNG HERO
He's something of an unsung hero, happiest playing the role of a conduit for others to shine.

Pretty much every personal project he's undertaken serves as a platform for others: Bibles Bibles had a total of 10 MCs plus Andy, and The Adventures of Simply Andy was generous in the giving over of time to acts including Rachel Kerr and Four Kornerz to showcase their material.

Over the summer weeks in 2009, we had a conversation that spanned email, text messages and telephone calls. There's so much to come from him, but the following should give you some insight into the man called simply called Andy...
 
The UKGospel.com Simply Andy Special
    So, the profile bit. What's your background?
  I'm mixed race. I'm a Ghanaian who was born in
  Nigeria.

  I ran away from the government to make ends
  meet in the UK and now live in Hackney, London.

   I'm sure you've been asked this dozens of
  times: how did the name 'Simply Andy' come
  about..?
  I am a very complex person but only those close
  to me know this and because of my complexities,
  I decided to simply-fy myself.
  So there we have it.

Let's take it back to 'Bibles Bibles'... As much as it is old news for you and quite a few of us, how did it all came about...?
It's a long story, but I'll try and make it as short as possible: I was presenting on Genesis TV [Andy had a presenting stint on the station] and the phrase came to me live on the set.

I realised that a lot of young people were losing their lives to
gun crime so I decided to promote the idea of dropping the
guns and picking up the Bible.

I hollered at some of my brothers in the industry and we
decided to come together for such a cause...

I'm sure there are people that still don't know how much
of an impact that song had on galvanising the scene.

It showed what's possible in terms of having a pure gospel
track that can travel beyond the gospel underground and
head for the mainstream.

What's your take on that?
In all honesty, GOD is GOOD because He doesn't do small
things.

When God is in something, no matter the lingo, no matter
how 'Christian' it sounds, if it needs to be heard, it will. It still
amazes me right now how far it went and is still going.

And some say it was the first gospel tune to be play listed on Channel U (now Channel AKA). If that's true, how does that make you feel?
Hmmmm, well a few years before, Green Jade (My uncles in the ministry) had a track called
Gunz Down which was an anti-gun campaign backed by the government and not necessarily a Christian song.

That played on Channel U for a long while, whereas Bibles, Bibles was and is an outright Christian tune with a solely Christian message referring to the streets:

  "Drop the guns and pick up Bibles"

...And then you released the mighty Good News EP. One of my favourite UK tunes of all time are on that disc. How did it come about?
A lot of people were demanding the Bibles, Bibles track. I put it on my Facebook page for free download but yet people wanted more.

And then I felt really burdened on my heart to do this project.
 
It's also quite varied in terms of both content, character and contributors...
Yeah... Every day isn’t the same. Some days, you feel relaxed, and some you feel happy and

 SUPPORTING CAST: Backstage at 'Adventures', with Icie from Commission

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