MC Grammar on inspiring literacy

What did it mean to you to win the Ruth Rendell Award for Services to Literacy?

I didn’t expect to win at all. It was a real full circle moment for me. As a creator and a reader, but also as the kid that didn’t do well when it came to finding his words and his voice, to be recognised by your peers for your services to literacy was just very humbling and a massive privilege.

I felt lost and isolated in education, but I’d always had this wild imagination, and I was always really creative. Everything in my mind was big and loud, and colourful and vibrant. Yet, in school, I was reticent, really reserved. And that was because I struggled with words. When I discovered music, Hip Hop and of course, books, it literally changed my entire world. To then win an award for inspiring others to make that same discovery, it’s just beyond my wildest dreams. So I’m very grateful and very inspired to continue my mission of getting kids inspired by reading.

How did this discovery of the power of words come about?

When I was growing up, lots of boys found their sense of belonging from their friendship groups, whether that was gangs or football teams. But I was a shy kid and I liked to disappear. And books became that place I would disappear to. Because no matter the weather or how I was feeling, there was always another destination I could visit. I could always be someone else. It gave me a sense of agency, and everything just became better. They gave me confidence and opened up doors I didn’t know existed.

At school, books were just ink on a page. But when I got into books, I discovered their real power. You want a piece of information? It’s there. You want to visit a desert island? You can go there. You want to fight a pirate? Cool. You can do all of that and next thing you know, you’re back in your bedroom. It blew my mind that these things you can hold in your hand can do all that.

What impact did discovering your love of Hip Hop have?

To be a good rapper, you’ve obviously got to have bars, and bars are just words. The way you manipulate those words, it’s emotive, it’s eloquent, it’s enticing on the ear. But if you dig deeper, you start realising that these guys are absolute wordsmiths. They might not be the most academic, but they’re masters of language. Like a lot of young people, I was just captivated by this world of punchlines, wordplay and eloquent delivery. When you show some of these lines to kids in Year 6, and ask them what they mean, it creates such a good discussion. You start to understand that literacy goes beyond just a page and ripples into all areas of life, especially music.

You then took up teaching, what was that experience like?

On my first day, my amazing headteacher, Rebecca, took me into my Year 5 classroom and just said “this is your class” and left me to it. I said “wait, where are you going? What do I do?” She said, “Look, you know the curriculum plan. You got the job because we love your personality, let that shine through and just do your thing.” So I started adding raps into my lessons. The kids would just rap these back to me constantly, and they were smashing their tests. I thought “wow, this stuff really resonates.”

And when did you start to grow beyond your classroom?

So I made my own YouTube channel where I would put out these songs and eventually adopted the name MC Grammar (which went over the kids’ heads). My headteacher saw that this was working and made me a consultant for one day a week so I could go and visit other schools. Soon it became two days a week, and then people started asking for live shows. One day, my wife put a video up of me doing one of these raps to our daughter, and boom. Viral. I think it’s at 50 million views now. From there, it just went crazy.

How did it feel suddenly getting that level of attention and profile? Did it spur you on to think bigger in your mission?

It’s insane because I feel like this is just what I do every day in the classroom, I didn’t understand why people were going wild over it. But yes, 100%. I was happy to be reaching so many kids through my teaching, my consultancy and my YouTube channel, but I thought this could now be something global. I went down to two days a week teaching, then one, and then it just got so busy following this organic demand, that I’m now privileged enough to pursue this mission full-time. I’ve appeared on the Ellen DeGeneres Show in LA and BBC Breakfast, performed at Glastonbury Festival, got an agent, a record deal, written multiple books, one with Michael Rosen, who is the absolute blueprint for kids’ literacy. All of this has been done to inspire kids to fall in love with reading, like I did.

You’ve now written your own books, how did you find the process being on the other side of a book?

It’s tough! When you first sit down, you just think “oh man… I wish I listened in class a bit more.” I just got stuck in this world of blank, so I just started scribbling stuff down. And then when I realised the pages were actually filling out, I started to get a loose structure. From there, I just started filling in the gaps. You have to accept that it’s a process. One day, you might think you’ve smashed a whole chapter and then read it back the next day and think “what was that?”. You can’t force these things. Just keep building and building.

What would you say to a young person who says reading isn’t for them?

I would say you may just not have found the right book yet. I would ask them what they think reading actually is, and if they say it’s just these big thick books with lots of words, I would tell them reading is directions in their local town, it’s comics, it’s football reports, it’s anything you want. First, find what you actually like, like me with Hip Hop, and everything else will follow. It’s about finding out what excites you, not what anyone else is reading.

2026 is the National Year of Reading. Do you think that society is starting to take the issue of children’s literacy seriously?

I definitely feel like we’re starting to see a positive turn. It is the National Year of Reading, we’re getting the support, we’re getting the spotlight. There are so many cool books out there, so many festivals and different projects to get kids reading. You even see McDonald’s offering books instead of toys in their Happy Meals now. We’ve all seen the statistics, that reading for pleasure is at an all-time low. But there are so many people like me, who are doing our best to turn this around, and it’s amazing to see.

Do you have any particular experiences with young people that you’ll always remember?

So many, I have these sorts of experiences all the time. We get messages from parents saying their child has been non-verbal for years, has never said a word, and today they walked in and started rapping your song. This kind of transformational connection just pushes me to reach as many kids as possible, because it’s making such a seismic change in their lives. The power of books, the power of music, the power of words is connecting with a generation that aren’t necessarily reading as much. So we have to go full 100% with this and reach as many kids as possible, worldwide.

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You can find out more about MC Grammar and his work here.