Just back from Bristol where I had the pleasure of seeing JME, N-Dubz, UnkleJam and Kano do an MTV special. Catch it on MTV OVerdrive right about, er, now.
JME proved his reach extends far beyond London with more than a few heads knowing nearly every word of Serious, AWOH and Deadout. As ever, he put in a great performance, the highlight of which may have been when he was joined at the end by Skepta, Logan, Shorty and Maximum for a mammoth poster give-away. Keep checking his MySpace too cos there was a Boy Better Know camera-man in the house filming content that JME told me will be MySpace excloose any day now. MySpace.com/jmeserious
N-Dubz were pretty good too, though it showed they haven't played live as much as the other guys on the bill. That said, they had energy aplenty and I Swear was a predictable hit with the crowd.
Unklejam aren't my cuppa, but I have to admit they do a pretty tight set. There's one track I like, a slow-ish ballad number, that sounded great live and while I wasn't sure how they were going to fit next to the evening's grimier acts they went down well. I spoke to them briefly afterwards and they had some v cool stuff to say about the true meanign of 'keeping it real.' Just because they're three young black men doesn't mean they have to wear shiny suits and 'dance about like B2K,' they insisted. They're doing their thing in the way they want to, ignoring stereotypes and retaining what's real to them. Good on 'em. Black artists doing rock - Prince and Hendrix aside - have had a traditionally hard time getting recognition (Skunk Anansie, Res, Fishbone, Kelis to an extent) because of the BS boxes people like me (ie journalists) shove acts into. But if they wanna rock - let 'em rock. I think those dudes could do well in America.
Anyway, the evening's headliner and highlight was defintely Ka-No. Keeping the crowd happy with old favourties like Ps&Qs, Brown Eyes and Typical Me, Mr Kane Robinson also treated us to new stuff like Buss It Up, forthcoming mixtape tracks (watch for the new tape about to dropLayer Cake and Grew Up A Screw Up) and two tracks from forthcoming album, London Town. The title track was his opener and was biggity-big. His flow is ever-more confident, his lyrics sharper and his rhymes tight, giving great hope for the new album. I really believe he is the best rapper we have in the UK right now. Literally. He closed with Back In The Day, featuring Kate Nash (19 yr old singer/ songwriter that has record labels currently going nuts) and besides being a mammoth track , the RWD crew loved it even more thanks to the line...'I used to read RWD magazine...'
Brap, brap, brap is all I can say.
Just back from NYC, Wiley made a late apperance to show support to JME and, no doubt, check out what cards the competition is holding. Kano and the Eski One both release albums in the next couple of months. Wil is up first, followed by Kano sometime in the summer, I believe.
Thanks to Zoe at MTV for taking myself, Dan and Raj Kapone to Bristol. And thanks to Chan, Dan, Raj and Zoe for the many, many jokes.
Check RWDmag.com for the oh-ficial overview.
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