Jailed gangster addresses rivals in rap filmed live from inside prison
A jailed gangster has addressed his rivals in a rap live-streamed on YouTube despite being behind bars for a botched kidnapping.
Alexander Blake, who goes by the name KB, calmly dropped his ‘bars’ watched by two presenters in a studio on the Chop Shop Podcast.
Wearing an Emporio Armani T-shirt, he appeared relaxed and unhurried despite serving time for firearms and kidnapping offences.
Reflecting on the road that has led him to prison, he talks of being ‘armed to the teeth when we parked in the street’ as he addresses his rivals and warns, ‘even in jail we turn up’.
He appeared against a bleached white background and it’s unclear how the clip was filmed, or if he had permission to use personal communications equipment at the time.
Mobile phones are illegal in prisons, though in some cases recorded calls are allowed from cells to pre-approved numbers.
Extra security measures including X-ray scanners and metal detectors are being used to clamp down on drugs, weapons and mobile phones that increase the risk to prison officers and hinder rehabilitation.
The video was uploaded to the rap and grime channel two weeks ago.
A Prison Service spokesperson said: ‘Prisoners found with mobile phones will be punished and can face extra time behind bars.
‘We have requested that the video is removed as a priority.’
Blake, 29, from Birmingham, has made a number of appearances on widely-viewed urban music channels since his incarceration.
He was originally jailed over a plot to rob a drug dealer that went wrong because, along with accomplice Ryan Blakeney, he targeted an innocent man.
After smashing their way into the victim’s home in Dorridge, near Solihull, they tied him up and threatened to pour boiling water over him.
Blake, who lived in Tyseley, at the time, wielded a knife while his accomplice demanded cash and took a fake Rolex watch and £150 from the man’s pocket.
They then bundled him into the boot of his own car and drove to Tyseley, where he was left locked in.
But he was able to break out and call police on his mobile, which was left behind so his blackmailers could continue making threats and demands by phone.
Blake was arrested as he tried to sign on at a city Jobcentre and was jailed for 11 years at Birmingham Crown Court in April 2014.
Blakeney, from Lee Bank, who was aged 27 at the time, was sentenced to eight years in prison.
Both had been charged with robbery, kidnap and blackmail.
Blake continued his life of crime from behind bars, directing a plot to deliver a short-barelled shotgun for a gang-related crime.
Using a contraband mobile phone at HMP Wymott in Lancashire, he again teamed up with Blakeney, who was at HMP Birmingham, to organise the handover in February 2018.
A police surveillance unit monitored the exchange on a quiet Weoley Castle street and armed officers later stormed a flat in Tower View, Selly Oak, where the man who received it lived.
They found the firearm along with more than 100 rounds of ammunition and dozens of wraps of Class A drugs.
Detectives from the West Midlands Regional Organised Crime Unit then traced the plot back to the serving prisoners, who had been linked to gang activity in Highgate.
Blakeney was jailed for another eight years and his brother John Blakeney, 31, who had just started a nine-year stretch at HMP Birmingham for a drugs offence, was locked up for a further seven years after both were found guilty of conspiring to transfer a firearm.
Blake was found guilty of the same charge at Birmingham Crown Court and was sentenced to seven years.
Detective Inspector Mark Walters, of the organised crime unit, said at the time: “This was a complex investigation following some great work by surveillance officers and West Midlands Police’s firearms team.
“The judge concluded in his summing up that the gun was going to be used in serious gang-related crime.
“We will never know exactly what the intended use was for the gun but there is every chance this investigation has prevented someone from being seriously hurt or even killed.”
Blake is among a number of grime and drill stars who have used social media channels to broadcast music while in and out of prison, with some getting widespread mainstream play after release.
Some material judged as being linked to criminal activity has been removed from social media channels at the request of police forces, including in London and the West Midlands.
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