Sick Kids
"Way back in summer 2006, us Kids clearly had too much time on our hands. That's when we formed an all female rap group called 'The Sick Kids!'.
Purely for our own entertainment we wrote our first track, a 1.28 minute rap about our favourite snack, the infamous egg bap, named 'The Egg Bap Queens'.
The Sick Kids are Kelly (aka JacksonKid) and her little sister Lele (aka [SPEAKS]).
"Our musical influences range from hip-hop (Eminem, Dr Dre, 50 Cent, Run Dmc, Chamillionaire, DMX, Mobb Deep, Cypress Hill, TLC, Necro, Sage Francis, Beastie Boys, Aliyah, Neneh Cherry), to pop (The Spice Girls, Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Enrique Iglesias, Paramore, Cyndi Lauper) to pop punk, metal, rock and everything inbetween (NOFX, Be Your Own Pet The Descendents, Blink 182, The Runaways, Incubus, Slipknot, Crystal Castles, Sick Of It All, the Distillers, At The Drive In, Rocket from the Crypt, Bad Brains, Adolescents, The Smiths, 36 Crazyfists, Weezer, operation Ivy, Fugazi, X-Ray Spex, Bad Religion).
This mix of music not only influenced our music but also our personal sense of style and The Sick Kids clothing label later on. Mixing hip-hop street wear with pop and punk, new and old.
When our good friend Goldielocks was booked for an all ages gig in Camden that we were pretty excited about (under age gigs = best crowds!), we wanted some funny slogan t-shirts to wear. There were not so easy to find, the only one's knocking about at the time were those retro 'Choose Life' ones.... not fun!
So naturally we decided to make our own. I bought some blank coloured t-shirts and t-shirt transfer paper to print the slogans on. We decided on 'I would wash pre-washed salad for you', 'Lighter, lighter, baked beans, baked beans', 'Bollox to bisto' and 'Real Gravy'. Hilarious at the time, trust me.
We simply printed and cut the letters out, then ironed them onto the t-shirts! They were a hit with the Camden kids, so I immediately set up a Paypal shop on Myspace and began making the shirts to order. In the beginning I lovingly named the clothing label 'Sick Kids Home Made Garms'."
At just 21, Lele has already launched a music career that has seen her open for Iglu, Hartley and Crystal Castles. She has signed to EMI Publishing and has started work on her first full length album which is out later this year.