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First Dips: Benjamin Kheng

First Dips: Every Monday, we chat with our homies outside the Crew to find out what ticks their musical impulses and fancies. What was their first hip-hop or urban music love?

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All photos by Timothy Sim

Benjamin Kheng, one of Singapore’s best-loved pop-folk quartet The Sam Willows is not just your typical singer in a band. He is well-known and respected as a theatre and musical actor. Being a human clothes horse, he is highly sought after in fashion shoots as well. Well, he looks good with a fedora after all.

Ben has been dabbling into another passion of his: Spoken Word and has put out a video with his pal Gareth Fernandez in February 2014. He is rather bashful about his spitting skills. Check it out yourself.

Haters might not like what they hear but hey, our homie Ben will probably out-sing you anyway. Since he’s hopping onto the Spoken Word game, we thought we would check in with him about his favourite rapper.

Mos Def – Mathematics

(To pick my favourite rapper), it’s a tough fight between Mos Def (aka Yasiin Bey), Macklemore and Mike Shinoda. Triple M’s!

But I really like this track from Mos Def. Ingenious play on words, tackling heavy topics like dehumanization and racial subjugation. And for this line: “I’m blacker than midnight on Broadway and Myrtle, Hip-Hop past all your tall social hurdles.”