Student Plans World Tour After MOBO Nomination

The Tab talks to a rather extraordinary student at UoN who was recently nominated for one of the biggest British music awards.


Described as “the capital of music” by BBC Radio 2, Nottingham continues to deliver talent to the UK’s music scene.

Ramone Williams a.k.a MOBO nominated ‘Ram 1’, spoke exclusively to The Tab about getting reggae back in the charts, hip hop vs grime and what the MOBO’s are actually like (“it’s not what you see on the TV”).

Ram studies Humanistic Counselling at UoN and is in his third and final year. But forget worrying about final exams, instead just add that to an ever growing pile of commitments.

His debut album ‘1 Way 1 Truth 1 Life’ was released last year and he is now working on his next album which he hopes to release in April/May 2013. Ram also picks up shifts at the Albert Hall in Nottingham as a silver service waiter and at Bluecoats School in Nottingham as an exam invigilator. He arranges video shootings for all his singles, including completing the tasks of writing a script, sorting location and organising logistics.

“When I look at my diary each month I sit there and I think ‘I don’t know how am I get through this’ but then I look back at how much I have gone through, and think ‘well I didn’t know how to get through that’”.

Workaholic is an understatement.

Ram believes that he maintains a balance because of his passion for both music and counselling, hoping one day that he will be able to fuse the two together as a career. However he admits that “there is a tendency to give less time and devotion to education so sometimes it might suffer, but so far I have managed to get like 2:1‘s” but that “this third and final year will be the ultimate test”.

After 4 years of being so heavily involved with music alongside his studies, The Tab has every faith that Ram will continue to achieve. However, this success is a fairly new feature to Ram’s life.

Whilst at Bluecoat Academy in Nottingham, the star confesses that he was always “getting into so much trouble at school” due to smoking and violence. He now works closely with students at Bluecoats and says “I have now changed my drive, my passions, my outlook. I am a changed person thanks to God, which positively affects my outlook and approach to life and people. My life is fixed up.”

He draws on his past experiences to write his lyrics, “when I write, I think you’ll hear more in the later projects I’m looking to release, my aim is to speak not just introspectively, so not just what is going on within me, but with what I see going on around me, so that incorporates personal experience and social issues.”

His experience at the MOBO’s has been a big catalyst for his music- “people take me more seriously now”. But he has no intention of winning one in the future, “I’ll just continue doing what I’m doing. Before the MOBO’s I wasn’t at all interested and after the MOBO’s I’m not now more motivated to win one”.

In fact when it came to talking about the MOBOs, Ram’s voice fell rather flat.

“It was nice to be on that side of the fence, in VIP and stuff, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the people who had paid for their tickets, it wasn’t entertaining or engaging. The ceremony as a whole definitely looked better on TV; it was like a bad gig”.

Speaking of gigs, Ram’s plans and aspirations continue to intensify. He plans to go on tour next summer but, as the local boy’s fan base reaches all over the globe, he will be looking a little further than his hometown of Nottingham.

“I’d love to tour Europe, I don’t know why, but my heart is set on Europe…and maybe South America.”

And there will be plenty of people coming out to support him;

“I noticed it wasn’t just family and friends listening to my music when people, random people, started regularly messaging me. I hear from people from Costa Rica, Puerto Rica, Cuba, Germany, France and Italy.”

It doesn’t stop at a world tour, Ram hopes to set up a charity using music to raise awareness of those without basic necessities. He wants it to be “a cause which any human being looks at and thinks, ‘actually not to support this would be almost wrong’.I can be quite skeptical of charities myself so I want it to actually educate people.”

He also plans to release his next album next April/May with his singles My Habitat and Babylon having just been released.

Don’t know about you but I think I may have to quit complaining about my work load. The Tab asked for some wise words from Ram;

“Work hard at what your good at and don’t be discouraged if you don’t get as far as other people. It is all about being content with what we have.”

Ram 1 will be performing next at the charity event Hope For Justice at The Den on Tuesday 4th December.