7:03pm Thursday 9th October 2008
By Kathie Griffiths
A Bradford rapper on the brink of the big time has been banned from going behind bars to promote his new single – after police read his MySpace page.
Dorzi, seen by millions of Channel 4 viewers talking on a knife crime documentary earlier this year about how he gave up gang life for music, wanted to use the cells at Trafalgar House police station for a publicity photo-shoot.
And to return the favour he had been talking to police community workers about touring schools in the district with a special track warning youngsters to stay away from crime.
But yesterday – the day of filming – Bradford officers discovered “smoking ganja non-stop” topped his list of interests on his MySpace page.
A West Yorkshire Police spokesman said the MySpace entry had been updated since they last looked and the drug reference was new.
The decision surprised Dorzi, who grew up on Ravenscliffe and now lives in Laisterdyke.
The 21-year-old, whose real name is Dorian Smith, said: “I was just messing around. It’s just tongue-in-cheek. I don’t have time to smoke ganja now non-stop, I’m too busy with my music and working in a care home. The interests bit is old, it needs updating.
“That’s the kind of life I came from. I wouldn’t encourage anyone to get into that. Music is my top interest now.”
He says he turned his life around with the help of music studio Waxworks in Manningham Lane – a not-for-profit organisation which helps socially-excluded youngsters re-engage with society through music.
He admitted that after leaving college, he hung around with friends who had nothing else to do and carried weapons.
But Dorzi said he had left all that behind now and had teamed up with Bingley DJ James Sammon, who had a number six hit in the 1990s and has been signed to the Ministry of Sound record label. The DJ is pushing him to the top, taking his sounds to the label.
Dorzi’s track Jealous Girl has already had 90,000 hits since it went up a few weeks ago on MySpace and Youtube.
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