| Dirty Canvas @The Rhythm Factory, November 23rd '07 |
[Nov. 24th, 2007|01:47 pm] |
So I went to this last night.
Me and _pin had been chatting about checking some dubstep bizness for a while now, and a mate mailed me earlier in the week about this event. Gypsy Lantern joined us to make a foursome. It would’ve been so easy not to go, just to go the pub after work instead and then go home, but something conspired within us to make that extra effort. And, Jeezus, was it worth it (Flyboy, you really missed out).
A picture speaks a thousand words I think.
I’ve been hearing good grime stuff for a while now, and I knew that there’s was a lot more to the music than the stupid dismissive stereotypes, but to have the vibrancy of the scene slap you in the face was a real eye opener. It’s funny, but I can kinda position my relation to the music as a generational thing. I moved away from dance music when I left Nottingham back in 1997, I was a bit behind the curve with drum and bass’s slow evolution out of ‘ardkore, but two-step and “speed garage” totally passed me by. Most of my mates in London and Notts were into deep house and Detroit techno, and rejected the upstart UK bubblers sound of two step (my mate Tony used to call it “speed cabbage”!). This might seem trivial to an outsider but, as history shows us, it’s these trivial sectarian differences that are often the most important. I finally got it last night. Oh well – just a decade too late. The bouncing two step rhythms are unmistakeable UK and sound reggae influenced to me (an influence largely absent from US house). I wrote on a Barbelith thread recently that with grime the UK has finally got it’s own Hip Hop scene, but I think the soundsystem culture of Jamaica is a more useful parallel – you can see it in the rhythms, the emphasis on crews and live performance in the dancehall (approximately 15 guys on stage sharing the mike and a few spliffs) and the rapidfire London patois being chatted. It’s a 21st Century update of what guys like Saxon were doing 25 years ago.
So, saw a ‘ole heap of MCs but I didn’t know who most of them were. Three real standouts for me: Trim - amazing to see him kill it live with tracks off his Soulfood mixtape. The mixtape is quite dour and downbeat in a lot of ways but his performance gave it so high energy that it might well have been a completely different music. Fudaguy from Ruff Sqwad had a similarly commanding presence on stage. It all got a bit “male” at times, loads of blokes crowding the stage – the antidote for that had appeared earlier in the evening in the form of Warrrior Queen who also absolutely rocked it. Other contenders were Jammer (the guy with the white shirt and the dreads in the photo above) and Chipmunk (up and coming 16 year old MC). Every single track the crowd recognised got an insane response – jumping, screaming, fingers in the area. Absolute carnage.
Such a good night. I’ve been reflecting this morning on why I loved it so much – beyond the simple good vibe, people screaming their heads off and dancing away, it’s kind of a distillation of everything great about black music, the UK’s mixed racial culture and LONDON, onstage, coming at you with both barrels. |
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