Culture That Made Me: 2fm broadcaster Beta Da Silva selects his touchstones
Beta Da Silva presents the New Music Show on 2fm. Picture: Marc O'Sullivan
Beta Da Silva was born in Angola in 1996. He moved to Ireland in 2000, growing up predominantly in Palmerstown, Dublin. Having cut his teeth on college radio stations, he joined Liffey Sound FM in 2016.
He began working with RTÉ the following year, presenting a show on RTÉ Pulse, its 24/7 digital music radio station. He presents New Music Show with Beta Da Silva weekdays at 6pm on RTÉ 2fm.
The most fun I've ever had at a concert was when my fiancée and I went to go see Coldplay last year in Croke Park. I'd never been to a Coldplay show. There's something about Coldplay where you don't need to listen to their albums, but you know their songs somehow. At the gig, they gave us these lights on our wrists, and they lit up whenever Chris Martin decided he wanted them to light up. They had balloons everywhere. They had fireworks. They had these glasses that you put on your face, so when you looked at the fireworks, love hearts popped out of nowhere. It was so much fun. I don't know how they pulled it off. That Coldplay gig is going to be ingrained in my memory forever.
Roy Keane’s autobiography, , is crazy. I’ve read it five times. I grew up watching him up to the end of his career, although I'm an Arsenal fan, seeing him transition from player to manager, and then what he's doing now as a pundit. He was a crazy fellow when he was younger – the stories you read in his book and some of the fights he got into. He’s no-nonsense about the game. Reading that book really highlights it. He’s one of those one-of-a-kind players and one of those unique minds that stands out in the world.
My cousin came from France to visit us one time in the summer. I was 16. This is the first time I'd seen her in years. She was on this huge Lauren Hill buzz. I didn’t know who she was. She put me on game, and she let me know who Lauren Hill is. She wrote down . I was like, “What is that? Is that a book?” She said, “I guess, but it's a book that you can listen to.” I listened to the whole album from start to finish, and it was amazing — the first time I've ever heard somebody rap and sing at the same time and make it work. It's still insane to think that's her only album, but it’s one of the most loved albums of all time.
Every Christmas, we get around the TV and watch . For the last two decades, it's been the family tradition – to see what the McCallister family are doing. Even though we know the plot – when they leave the kid home alone – there’s something timeless about it. I love it.
Get the Gist is a podcast with three African Irish girls from Dublin – Roz, Ri and Princess. They talk about things relevant to their lives but also other people's lives, especially in Ireland. A guy listening to a podcast led by three women sounds a bit weird, but sometimes you just want to step out of your own world. I feel like a fly on the wall for conversations I'm probably not supposed to be listening in on. I love their dynamic. I love how they get along and the story of how the three of them got together. I love what those women are doing.
[series on Sky] is this reworking of . It's based on the same characters – Will, Carlton, Hillary, Uncle Phil and so on, but it’s a more dramatic take on The Fresh Prince, which was a comedy. There’s a bit of comedy in there as well, but it's more grounded. Same premise – Will is from Philly. He comes to his rich uncle and auntie's house. He's living there for a better life. The stories are dramatized 100%, but in a good way. They all play their parts incredibly well. You feel these characters. The storylines they've put on there, you would never expect them.
I grew up as a hip-hop kid. I heard a song by 50 Cent. I was flipping through the channels mindlessly. And then the video came on. It was after hours and it's not a video I should have been watching at that age – I was five or six years old, but that song, for whatever reason, stuck with me over the years. I liked the rhythm and cadence of it. I didn't understand the lyrics at the time. I loved the beats. Something about hip-hop resonated with me.
As I got older, I started getting into Nas, who's my favourite rapper. I love storytelling and the reason I love storytelling is because of that man. His albums all tell a story. The thing at the time when he was rapping was gangster rap, violence, drugs, money, yada, yada, but Nas was rapping about his life growing up, his parents and the struggle. I couldn’t really relate, being this young kid from Dublin, but I wanted to listen to this guy's story from New York. It stuck with me.
I was a six-month-old baby when Biggie Smalls passed away in ’97. He was only 24 – very young. The interesting part about that was that he was very famous when he was very young. I listened to all his albums, particularly his first one, . He had a voice that cut through every line. He made a point in every single line. To be that young and to have that much insight into the world, to be from New York but not really travel the world, but to have a worldly view on things was crazy.
Everybody knows at this point Kendrick Lamar is a lyrical genius. He's a poet. To have one album that's about therapy, another album that's about his life growing up, another album that's about societal views and politics, like to change it up every single go is so impressive. I don't listen to music passively. I love acts that take their time with the music and write music the way they're intended to listen – that’s what Kendrick Lamar does. It’s music that makes you think.
My favourite Kendrick Lamar song of all time is called . It came out in 2017. It’s on his album called and he has a lyric on there where he says, “I feel like a chip on my shoulders / I feel like I'm losin’ my focus / I feel like I'm losin’ my patience / I feel like my thoughts in the basement / I feel like you're miseducated”. In two-and-a-half minutes, he wrote exactly what it feels like to be alone. I thought that was the smartest thing somebody could do – to hear a grown man rap about something that a young kid can relate to, and it all derives from the word “feel”. That is genius stuff.
