Sithrik is the stage name of Richard Ramsbottom, the music svengali from Berwick-upon-Tweed who is credited as being the first person to bring hip-hop to Jupiter.
Early Life
Richard Ramsbottom was born in a two-up, two-down in Berwick-upon-Tweed. His mother and father were homeworkers, and spent their days painting the house unendingly. When he was 14 Ramsbottom decided he didn't want to paint the house, and in a fit of pique, decided to travel to the bright lights of Cleethorpes, in Lincolnshire, for a gig.
Early Career
Sithrik's terrestrial music career started when he went to his first Bogrock gig in Cleethorpes. The toilet-themed rap/rock superstars gave Ramsbottom the musical bug, and when he returned from the gig, he started to write down his own rhymes and put them to beats he'd bash out with biros on makeshift drums made from greaseproof paper sellotaped over cake tins. He eventually graduated to playing live gigs in the working men's clubs of rural Northumberland in the late 21st century. His original stage name was Sick Rick. Ramsottom experienced a terrible first gig at the Bamburgh Seaside Social Club, when his song, Appetite for Cake, had to be interrupted halfway through in order to complete the bingo numbers. When he refused to leave the stage he was thrown in the sea by two old men.
Big Break
Ramsbottom was undeterred, and started to play more and more social clubs. His big break came when he was playing the Queen's Knockers Tavern in Pooley Bridge. There were 14 people in the audience, although that included "two dogs, the bar staff and a newspaper," according to Ramsbottom's autobiography, Starship-hop Trooper. However, also in the audience was Auld Zog Smith, the legendary interplanetary music A&R man from Titan. Auld Zog liked the cut of Ramsbottom's jib, and invited him to support his most famous outfit, KABLAM!, the prog-rock group made up of former mining slaves, on their tour of the inner reaches of the Solar System. The only condition was that he changed his name from Sick Rick to Sith Rick, "because Sick Rick makes you sound unwell." Sith Rick was later contracted to Sithrik.
Tour of the Inner Reaches of the Solar System
Sithrik was a big hit in the terrestrial planets, where his fierce, political songs, such as Fear Of A Northern Planet, Rebel Without A Bam Cake, Straight Outta Durham, Ain't Nuthin But A Tea Thang, and In Da (Social) Club, were greeted by the local critics as evidence of a real, powerful voice of a human trying to survive on the mean bridlepaths of rural England. The tour went well, apart from a fracas Sithrik had with Weedkilla, a vegetable-based lifeform MC from Titan. The spat was allegedly over a turf war, when Sithrik attempted to grow some root vegetables in a public allotment on Mars. Weedkilla claimed the allotment plot was already allocated to him. The trash talk escalated into a full-scale intergalactic gang war, with the "Weeds" fighting against Sithrik's ardent fans, the "Sickers Lickers". Millions died.
Flee to Jupiter
After receiving a growing number of death threats from the spineless organic compounds of Europa, Sithrik decided to take cover on Jupiter. He would have died owing to the huge gravity of the giant planet, but according to Auld Zog the power of his bass and beats "was so bangin' that it counteracted the gravity. Probably." He settled in a patch of land he renamed Nova Cornhill-on-Tweed and started building a working men's club so that he could start spreading his message to the galaxy once again.
~
Sir Kelmscott Cotswold
