Like all great fairy tales, this one begins in a McDonald’s. Fire up YouTube and tap in “Betty Boo” and “freestyle” and you’ll find a fuzzy camcorder-taped clip of a 17-year-old Alison Clarkson belting out an impromptu rap in front of Public Enemy’s Professor Griff in a McDonald’s joint in Hammersmith.
“It was the night of that big Def Jam tour, with the Beastie Boys, LL Cool J and Run DMC,” reflects Alison Clarkson, aka Betty Boo, 32 years on from that serendipitous hook-up. “We were just coming back from the Apollo, and fancied a McDonald’s and we saw Griff and the S1Ws buying a fillet of fish, so we just said, ‘We’re rappers, we just went to your gig!’”
Griff and the S1Ws (the band’s paramilitary-clad security force) happened to have a documentary team in tow and recorded Clarkson and her two schoolmates, known en masse as the She Rockers, freestyling. The clip climaxes with the group being ushered out onto the night-time street by a befuddled looking McDonald’s employee.