Cordless News

Steven Frayne aka Dynamo is a Magician from the small city of Bradford who has, as he put it 'gone from performing on council estates to performing on royal estates'. The mysterious young man has amazed the likes of Will Smith, Rihanna, Lindsay Lohan and millions (if not billions) more around the world with his street magic. Cordless caught up with Dynamo to talk Linkin Park, losing conciousness and levitating... Words by Lawrence Gichigi

Are you called Dynamo because you wanted to sound powerful and Dynamite was taken?
[Laughs] I've never heard that one before. That's good! Basically, it goes back to 2002 when I was performing at the Hilton Hotel in New York. It was the 100th anniversary of Houdini's death and it was a crazy event. David Blane, David Copperfield and all the big magicians were there. After my performance one kid stands up and shouts 'This kid's a f*ckin' dynamo!' From that moment, the other magicians started calling me Dynamo. So it was really given to me by my peers.

Some people have crazy reactions to your magic!
Two nights ago a guy actually fainted while I was performing! I was on tour with Ian Brown doing after-show performances. I was doing my thing making people's cards appear and a guy from the audience said he thought it was set up. I love a challenge so I said "What card do you want then?" He names the card, it pops out of my shoe and the guy fainted! Somebody shouted "Get him a drink!" so I pulled a can of coke out of my shoe!

Are you a God or the Devil?
Maybe Jesus with a lower case 'j'.

I like that! Do you consider magic an art?
I do think its an art form. I'll watch some my peers on stage and I would never perform like them, but it's very beautiful to watch when you can see how much thought has gone into it. Watching anybody who's good at what they do is an art form in my opinion. And if you're good at what you do it just becomes an everyday part of life and you don't have to over hype it, you just do it. Like I wake up in the morning, put my trainers on, shake my foot and my laces tie themselves. It's just the way it is.

When did you first start performing street magic?
I've been performing since I was about seven years old.

Are you serious?!
Serious. Obviously not the kind of magic I perform today though. There were two guys from my area that used to beat me up, jack stuff off me, put me in a bin and roll me down the hill. One day I learnt how to suck away their strength so they couldn't pick me up. I figured if they couldn't pick me up they couldn't put me in the bin. They got really freaked out and they actually became scared of me! I started using magic to get me out of certain situations.

So you can turn my Freeview box into Sky+?
I'll see what I can do man.

Gotcha! What music are you into?
As so many people probably say, I like my hip-hop, but a lot of people probably don't know that Linkin Park is my favourite band in the world. I'm really into guitar based music as well as rap so I'm looking forward to Lil Wayne's Rebirth album.

Your favourite fantasy collaboration?
Lil Wayne, T.I. and Linkin Park would be the best song ever.

From the music world, who would you say you're the magical equivalent of?
Hmmm..... That's a tough one. I'm gonna ask the audience.
[Goes and asks friends]
[A friend shouts "Harry Potter"]
[Dynamo "No seriously"]
[Another friend shouts "Usher"]
[Dynamo gives up on his friends]
Ermmmmm..... You know what, I would compare myself to Mike Shinoda from Linkin Park. He's the MC, songwriter, producer and basically the musical genius behind Linkin Park. He's the man!

Who are you feeling from the UK?
Firstly my boy Sway who's one the best lyricists in the country. Tinchy who I've known from back when he was, you know, still Tinchy. Also Skepta who was killing it on Westwood's show recently.

Is there anyone from the UK music scene that you'd like to levitate?
I reckon it would be funny to levitate Dappy from N-Dubz. Whenever I run into him he goes crazy anyway!

What are your thoughts on The Cordless Show?
I like the fact that it doesn't just record the familiar faces that everybody sees on their TV screens. I've seen the interview with Jasmine Dotiwala and that woman has a lot of knowledge about the UK music industry. She's like the queen of the British music television and now you've had the king of magic!

Twitter.com/dynamomagician

Youtube.com/krakatowa9