The final instalment of the writer-director’s
YouTube drama Shiro’s Story clocked up more than a million views within hours of going online. It’s hardly a surprise that the big players got on the phone
Few new directors have to leave their local area because of their burgeoning success. Nor do they have to juggle the advances of rival moguls before making their first film – or do so with an audience of 7.2 million people waiting for the results. Given all this, Rapman – the alias of the
British rapper and film-maker Andrew Onwubolu – is surprisingly relaxed, a bright-eyed barrage of words in sweatshirt and black jeans on a cold afternoon in London.
The 7.2 million in question are the viewers to date of Shiro’s Story, the three-part drama he authored, whose phenomenal numbers on YouTube have led to a movie, Blue Story. The film is set in Lewisham, south
London, where its writer-director grew up, but which he has since had to leave. “Don’t get it twisted,” he says. “The majority of people are happy for me. But you also get: ‘What have you put in my individual pocket?’ Until you can answer that, you can’t live where you’re from and feel safe.”