Rennel and The Bag That Is Older Than Him

Rennel and The Bag That Is Older Than Him

Well first of all, I can tell you its older than me. I am twenty, turning twenty-one, and the bag is at least five years older than me. So, it's a very old bag.

Basically, last year I lost one of my bags that I used to carry my equipment in and I needed a quick replacement. So I asked my grandparents, who I live with, if they have any bags. And my grandma told me, quite kindly, there were a number of bags in the shed. So I went in the shed and dug up a variety of different shapes and sizes of bags and this one, was the one that caught me the most. And I particularly liked it because of a) the name, it's called Montana, the leather and the fact that it was quite old and it had a bit of a hip look to it, do you know what I mean? And then, from that, I started using it, I started carrying my laptop, my sound card, my microphones etc in the bag along with some really massive speakers, which sometimes make the bag bulge but it still carries it, you know.

So I started doing that, and what I realised was that I could literally walk anywhere with this bag and no-one had a clue what I had in the bag. And they couldn't imagine what I had in the bag. So I found that to be something that worked well, in my advantage, because I go to a variety of areas and there's a variety of different people there. And sometimes, I find that before I had this bag, I would go to certain places and people would watch me for what I had on me, do you know what I mean? And since I've been using this bag, people don't really notice me or the bag. So, I find it to be quite lucky.

My grandma used to use this bag to go to Jamaica and she has this thing about things being hers. So, she put red tape on it and wrote her name on the bag. And bit by bit the tape's worn away, but I like to keep it there because it has a lot of sentimental value for me because it's something that my grandma put there. And my grandma is a person that brings a lot of fortune in my life, whether that be good or bad. Like, when I was younger, my grandma used to give me a lot of warnings and sometimes she'd wish me luck in certain things and either one, it would always go the ways she said it would go. And if I went against that, it would never really end up that well for me. And yeah, that's something that's pretty much stuck with me from then. Like, it's never really changed, it's always been that way.

Rennel Walker-Arthur produces music, writes songs and poetry, does some rapping, takes photographs and also makes videos. He refers to art as his purpose.