GROWING in stature on the UK's battle rap scene is a man who found his voice - and a home - in Carlisle.
Dale Edge, aka Dale CA, moved to Carlisle seven years ago and has since brought the city its first ever live hip-hop show.
He continues to promote the genre within the region, as well as staging - often hysterical - rap battle clashes throughout the UK.
"When I was seventeen, I was homeless and I was sleeping rough at Redhill train station (Surrey).
"A lot of things went wrong so I came to see a family member up here and started again from scratch about six, seven years ago," he said.
Dale's love for spitting bars stems from being a child, were he and his friends would mimic popular YouTube favourites such as Don't Flop to try make each other laugh.
"When I first came up here there was nothing going on in the way of rap, and it was if I'm going to do this seriously, I'll do it properly and start doing shows around the area.
"And then we held the first ever rap live hip-hop show in Carlisle, which was ran by myself and DJ Rupture, aka Strictly Good Vibes.
"I now work a lot with Adam Teasdale, who runs Site Seventy9 Studios. I'm a big believer of supporting local, if everyone local works together, we'll elevate together," he said.
Grounded in reality, Dale is traversing the nation having just returned from a rap battle in Cambridge, with another in event in Glasgow at the end of the month lined up.
"My inspiration would be, put in the work and show people you don't have to come from much," he said.
"You don't have to come from something to be talented, you don't need the financial banking, you can do it all on your own with a camera.
"That helps a lot of kids that are in their bedrooms that think they can do this but I'll never get seen doing it, so there's no point," he said.
Dale CA will be performing as a resident rapper at the upcoming Solfest this year, giving special shoutouts to Tarns Dub Stage & SubSound.
The top-notch lyricist warns hip-hop heads to keep their eyes peeled as a lot more events will be coming to Carlisle - in particular, keep an eye out for Hip-hop Hooray in September.
You can keep up to date with all things battle-rap and hip-hop from Dale by following _DaleCA.
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