Rising comic Amelia Hamilton on releasing a rap album at the Fringe

Calling herself “a stand up comedian who raps”, rather than “a rap comedian”, Hamilton is distinct from comedy freestylers such as Abandoman, MC Hammersmith and Chris Turner, a mentor who's had US success, because improvising “is not necessarily” what she enjoys the most.

“I like thinking about the lyrics technically and how to shoehorn in all these references and jokes,” she explains. “If it wouldn’t be funny without music, it’s not going to be funny with music."

The rapping, she says, “puts a vibe in the room, adds another bit of texture. But it's not a cheat code or shortcut to laughs.”

Billing herself as “the UK's only female rap comedian (that she knows of)”, Hamilton has little self-deprecating shtick about being a young, white, middle-class woman with a philosophy degree and career in financial media, delivering an artform traditionally associated with disenfranchised black acts.

“That's obviously something I'm conscious of,” she says. “Perhaps you don’t get to speak like this, look like this and not justify it.” Yet taking the stage to her own music, rapping before she speaks, she maintains that audiences don’t see a mismatch. "I don’t reference it because [rap is] what I do and I’m good at it. It’s not the joke, I’ve written the jokes. Rap is something I’ve loved and done forever.”

Hamilton began regularly gigging on the London comedy circuit in 2022, belatedly adding the raps because “it was a form I was much more used to and found easier initially”.

“Now, I’m good at both,” she states with apparent conviction. But then immediately qualifies it. “She said in a questioning tone that only British people use when they say they’re okay at something.”

You have to be a bit “delusional” to release an album she reasons. "But I hope I always love it as much as I do now,” she adds, crafting her rhymes with longevity in mind.

“With rap, the temptation is to make it quicker, to show your cleverness and verbal dexterity,” she points out. “But comedy raps have to be much slower. The audience needs to hear everything, there have to be frequent punchlines”. So her lyrics incorporate “extra layers”, the opening number containing “double meanings and referencing everything within the show, so hopefully people buy the CD, listen again and again, find new things”.

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Targeting “young people, specifically young women”, the 20-something comedian is “uplifted and empowered” by her audiences’ responses. Nevertheless, she says, “I want to play any comedy club in the country and have stuff that works” and that her her work-in-progress shows have attracted people in their 40s and 50s.

Her influences are multi-hyphenates, straddling music, comedy and acting, ranging from Justina Valentine and Childish Gambino, aka Donald Glover, with some self-conscious, apologetic nods to Eminem and Ludacris, to former Fringe favourites-turned-superstars with portfolio careers such as Tim Minchin, Bo Burnham, Flight of the Conchords and Lin-Manuel Miranda. The latter found international fame with the rap musical that shares Hamilton's name, a decade after arriving in Edinburgh as part of hip hop troupe Freestyle Love Supreme.

“Stand up will always be in my life, it's what I enjoy the most and I'm best at,” she reflects. “But recording my album has been wonderful. And maybe I’d like to indulge in a full-blown rap album that isn’t comedy. I’d love to write a musical. I’ve got ideas for sitcoms. But I always remember Tim Minchin saying he never had a set path, he was always open to opportunities in front of him. I want to actively pursue things I’m passionate about. But there are so many different avenues open, I’d love to do it all.”

Amelia Hamilton: Forget Me Not, Pleasance Courtyard, 9.45pm, until 24 August

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