British ex-MP, 78, 'drops' hip-hop album
Benn there, done that
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LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Labor Party grandee Tony Benn became the oldest rapper in British politics on Friday when he launched an album of his most famous speeches set to ambient urban music.
"Tony Benn's greatest hits" includes samples of some of the finest moments from a political career spanning half a century.
It opens with his prophecy from 1998 that there would be another war in Iraq and ends with his condemnation of that war made before thousands of peace protestors in London's Hyde Park last February.
On other tracks he rails against the euro and coal mine closures, and muses on the House of Lords and democracy.
Benn, 78, a darling of the British left, said the album, mixed by record producer Charles Bailey, is true to the spirit of his words.
"I'm a rap man, not a spin man," Benn told reporters at the album's launch in central London.
"Even though I made some of these speeches 13 years ago, they're all about issues that are still relevant today. What Charles has done is bring parliamentary speeches into people's lives," he said.
Bailey was inspired to make the record by Benn's Hyde Park speech. "I feel safe promoting Tony Benn because he's honest," he said.
The album sleeve is covered in photos showing the devastation caused by the Iraq war. It also includes a moody black and white shot of Benn, in his trademark tweed jacket, sitting in Bailey's studio wearing a pair of headphones.
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