Levellers, Manic Street Preachers, New Order, The Clash, The Byrds, Pink Floyd, Cat Stevens, Oasis, REM, Radiohead, The Eagles, ELO, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Sublime, The Shamen, Basement Jaxx, Faithless, Asian Dub Foundation, Manu Chao, Dido, The Beautiful South, Badly Drawn Boy, Simon and Garfunkel, Idlewild, Kula Shaker, The Verve, The Mamas And The Papas, Blur, The Beatles, The Who, Traffic, David Rovics, James Blunt, Snow Patrol, The Stranglers, The Killers, The Darkness, Queen, Stevie Wonder, Steve Earle, The Cranberries, Fairport Convention, The Pogues, Flogging Molly, David Bowie, Rod Stewart, Beach Boys, various drum n' bass, rave, dance, psytrance
Movies
Withnail and I, Almost Famous, 28 Days Later, Crash, Ali, Babel, The Kite Runner, Borat, American History X, This Is England, The Wind That Shakes The Barley, Lord of the Rings, Munich, Dogma, The Trueman Show, Wayne's World, Trainspotting, Lock Stock, Snatch, Star Wars, Motorcycle Diaries, Easy Rider, Rabbit Proof Fence, The Warriors
Television
Lost, Prison Break, The Simpsons, Futurama, Peep Show, The Mighty Boosh, The IT Crowd, Father Ted, Black Books, Alan Partridge, Cyderdelic, Doctor Who, QI, Have I Got News For You, Yes Minister, Red Dwarf, The Office, Extras, The Young Ones
Books
Douglas Adams, John Banville, Louis de Bernières, William Blake, Joseph Conrad, Giles Foden, Jostein Gaarder, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Zulfikar Ghose, William Golding, Mohsin Hamid, Khaled Hosseini, Omar Khayyam, CS Lewis, Ian McEwan, Vladimir Nabokov, George Orwell, Jill Paton Walsh, Terry Pratchett, Phillip Pullman, Salman Rushdie, William Shakespeare, Kamila Shamsie, Zadie Smith, JRR Tolkien
Heroes
All my heroes are ghosts...
Salman Shaheen's Details
Status:
Single
Orientation:
Straight
Zodiac Sign:
Sagittarius
Occupation:
Writer
Salman Shaheen's Schools
University of East Anglia
Norwich, United Kingdom
Graduated: 2008
Student status: Alumni
Degree: Master's Degree
Major: Creative Writing
2007 to 2008
University of Cambridge
Cambridge, United Kingdom
Graduated: 2007
Student status: Alumni
Degree: Bachelor's Degree
Major: Social and Political Sciences
Clubs: Varsity
About me: Apparently having a Myspace is the done thing these days. And being part of a generation characterised by Myspace, i-pods and chlamydia, I figure one out of three ain't bad. Of course, I'm not an emo. But as I write this I currently have 0 friends - that's right, I even ditched Tom, so even the saddest, most depressed emo out there would struggle to beat that kind of lonliness. Credentials proved? Yes, I think that justifies having a Myspace.
So who am I?
I was born in Norwich in 1984 and grew up in the buzzing hub of humanity that is Suffolk, not too far from Lowestoft - that oh so charming little town famous for The Darkness, Lil Chris and being so far East that you get the feeling the rest of the country didn't really want it. As it happens my dad was Justin Hawkins's former English teacher. But this isn't HisSpace, it's Myspace.
I studied Social and Political Sciences at Jesus College, Cambridge and recently completed the MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. Writing's always been an important part of my life. I've just finished a novel focusing on disparate lives thrown together and ripped apart by the London bombings and by a dangerous game of one-upmanship between the external forces of Islamic extremism and white pride. It was a winning entry in the Writers' and Artists Yearbook/ A&C Black 100th Anniversary novel writing competition and I hope to send it to an agent in the near future. Meanwhile I'm working on a second novel, a magic realist tale set in Bolivia from the time of Che Guevara's shooting to the modern Gas War.
As you can probably imagine from those chosen topics, politics is another passion of mine. I've long been a socialist, strongly anti-war and environmentalist, committed to furthering the causes of peace, freedom, equality and many other fluffy things besides. I'm a member of 'The Third Estate' - a blogging collective set up a bunch of ex-Cambridge lefties with nothing better to do with their degrees than set the world to rights, or at least grumble about it a bit. We aim to offer daily progressive, irreverent and atypical commentary on culture and current events - check it out!
Every now and again I spend my time standing around on film sets as a supporting artist, playing all the roles you might expect of a long haired ethnic minority for twenty seconds on screen. Elsewhere on screen, I was a co-host on the Channel 4 children's news series 'First Edition' when both I and my hair were much shorter. I also played a chemically addled aeroplane pilot in a C4 News reconstruction scene and was a contestant on the 'Weakest Link'. Yep, Anne really is that scary in real life.
So that's me. Well it's not really me. To show you the profound depths of the real me, I'll probably post my responses to one of those inane email quizzes. In the meantime I might actually add some friends and thoroughly ruin any pretence at being emo...
Hi Sal. It's going well thanks. How are you? We've just put 'Chelsea Calling 2009' on the website. Its a first mix of the first song from our forthcoming debut album. Hope you like it. Hope everything is well and that I get to see you at the Wolfman showings.
As a massive thank you to all our friends and fans, we are giving away the b-side to our upcoming single "Dark is the New Light" which is being released 10th November on Doombox Recordings.
(Click on pic above for more info including tour dates and loads more)
The B-side is called "Bows and Arrows," it's completely FREE and only a click away.
Thanks again and please download the single too!!! Its all down to you!!!
'I been rapping for 1 year 1 month, 17 days. 13 hours, 28 minutes, then I met Dre. 30 minutes after I bought the new Em, that was November 18, 3:09 P.M. Around the same time Wanksta got it's first spin, that was 32 weeks before they signed Rakim. 8 Months, 13 Days, before I knew a Mike Lynn. And 3 Years after Mase done turned his mic in? I start writing 22 months and 20 weeks prior to Lebron shaking Adidas for Nikes. I'm right here, 6 years after Randy Moss caught his first touchdown for the Vikings. 1 day, 7 hours, 14 minutes, 21 seconds before Soundscan got printed. 2 Platinum Records for I'm classified with Biggie. And 2 seconds before the song finish, yeah.'
and who is the writer of that eloquent, breathtaking poesy?
yes you guessed it, the best rapper to come out of compton since dr dre:
