Lewis Parker @ Buffalos, Cardiff live
After doing rather nicely whilst he’s been away in the states (how many UK producers get a chance to work with Pretty Tony for Wu’s sake?), Lewis Parker is back in the UK for a little handful of tour dates and whilst Cardiff is increasingly getting dealt the short straw when it comes to live Hip Hop, thanks to fellow beat maker buddy Secondson, the nation who is the apparent home of the Pot Noodle was blessed with a real UK legend.
If this wasn’t enough to get people out of their Burberry hats and into some shell toes then frankly, I give up. Low and behold then, on arrival the club was dead, with all but a handful of diehards waiting to get their records signed. Whilst the deejays dropped a tasty array of back in the day gems and a few (but not too many ‘cos that’s just not real yo!) more up to date numbers, the situation was failing to improve. Then the appearance of local Newport lad Barnsey on stage seemed to create a little bit more enthusiasm. Unfortunately, maybe due to lack of experience more than anything, he failed to capitalise on this seemingly new scenario of ‘all eyes on me’, by not really delivering anything either particularly energising or indeed “Brap!” worthy for the crowd. Whilst it’s obvious the kids got lyrical ability, the delivery and overall persona need a bit more work. Thankfully Conrad Watts jumped on stage alongside him to give the crowd a much needed energy lift with the track off his recent EP called ‘Lifetime’.
Now the crowd had been slightly roused, it was perfect timing for Lewis Parker to hit stage and low and behold after a brief ‘hosting’ by Humurak, LP jumped up with his new artist buddy I-Truth. It didn’t take long before the classic hits started to leak out, with the now enthused crowd more than happy to rap along. The pick of these classics had to be ‘101 Pianos’, but to be fair he never dropped ‘The Options’ which would have seen me going nuts. It wasn’t just the oldies though, each track off his ‘International Heat’ 12” was run through, which worked especially well with the presence of I-Truth and a fair few tracks off ‘It’s All Happening Now’ album too. In addition, Secondson, who was Lewis’s deejay for the night, was dropping some sick elusive breaks which you could see both emcees were enjoying rhyming over and the crowd were too. There was just time in what was a back to back track set for I-Truth to really impress with his Spanish rhyming abilities, which despite me not having a clue of their content, was sounding smooth.
Having never seen Lewis live before, I was taken back at the stage presence the guy had, because if I’m being honest, I wasn’t expecting greatness. Alongside I-Truth, this was definitely a live act to remember, so make sure you catch either or ideally both these emcees together, because although the night could have been busier, there wasn’t a miserable face at kicking out time!
Secondson, who was Lewis’s deejay for the night, was dropping some sick elusive breaks which you could see both emcees were enjoying rhyming over
- 2Hip
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