NEWPORT rappers Goldie Lookin Chain celebrated the release of their new single yesterday with a 'chav' rally in London.

The band and hundreds of 'chav' fans descended on Leicester Square for what the band billed as 'a little jaunt around Soho'.

Chav is the new buzzword used to describe the youth culture which involves wearing cheap gold jewellery and chains, tracksuits, white trainers and caps. The band, which sends up the Newport chav scene with its clothes and "You knows it" catchphrase, has already had a top ten hit this year with Guns Don't Kill People Rappers Do.

Their Greatest Hits album released last month also went into the top ten. For an hour yesterday afternoon the band marched around London handing out banners and placards.

A band spokesman said: "Think custom Eighties souped up muscle cars, roller girls, leisure wear turning heads and causing chaos in the heart of Soho."

The band members marched through the streets with ghetto blasters playing their new single.

They drove a Vauxhall "Chavalier", a car with a Burberry tartan paint job presented to them by car magazine Max Power which features them in the December issue.

The band has had a meteoric rise to fame. Just 14 months after performing their first gig in Cardiff it is now in the middle of a sell-out tour across the UK and Europe, and has performed to tens of thousands of people over the past few months.

Radio One DJ Chris Moyles is releasing a spoof version of the band's last single, which he has called Dogz Don't Kill People, Wabbits Do, to raise money for Comic Relief.