Goldie Lookin Chain’s Rhys Hutchings speaks about being elected a councillor for Newport

Singer fills NME in on the trials and tribulations of the campaign trail

Rhys Hutchings of Goldie Lookin Chain has spoken after he was voted in as a Labour party councillor for Newport, Wales last week.

The rapper, who is known in the band as Zardoz, P Xain and Dwain Xain Zedong, told NME that a few locals have recognised him from the GLC, but that he hadn’t made too much of his public profile during the campaign.

Asked if he’d met any fans on the campaign trail, Hutchings said: “Me and the guys I was running alongside all put out leaflets with brief descriptions of us all and on that was a bit about being in popular hip-hop band Goldie Lookin Chain. A couple of people recognised me, but I genuinely think the last thing people expected was a member of Goldie Lookin Chain to knock on their door and say ‘Hi, what are your local issues?’ It’d be a bit like Sting turning up at your front door.”

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Hutchings then spoke about how he got involved with local politics in the first place, saying: “As with the all of the band, we’ve done a few things locally with the council and the Mayor, including a pro-celebrity golf tournament. The previous mayor, a guy called Bill Langsford, he persuaded me to get involved and become a councilor.”

Then asked when he decided to run for office and if the election had been much of a challenge, Hutchings added: “I decided just over a year ago that it was something I really want to do. We’ve been out knocking on doors since November of last year and we’ve been out every night since January. Labour came third last time, so we a lot of catching up to do. But we got there.”

The rapper added that his bandmate Eggsy had helped him out a bit on the campaign run, but that the rest of the crew had been off doing other things.

He added: “I got a couple of great lifts from Eggsy, he’s just got this new car too, but other than that, the other boys were working on other things.”

Comedy rap collective Goldie Lookin Chain released their latest album ‘Primordial Soup – The Mix Tape 3’, earlier this year.

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