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In hindsight, I think the main problem with that very off-putting Sheffield show was that it was disorganised with too many unprepared and unorganised elements and no real running order. Thankfully, with MC trip who is an actual rapper and not UK hiphop’s Timmy Mallet (Normski) by his side, Kela delivered a Concise 25 minute set which cut out all the hype and bullshit. Sure, the performance was kicked off with the same “gimme a kick – ptfff! Ptfff! Now gimme a snare! Chsssh! Chsssh! Now gimme a closed hi-hat t’ t’ t’ t! (etc)” routine. However, this time around, this introductory rigmarole was distilled from 10 minutes down to 1 and instead of descending into a mess of Normski’s fave ‘90s Dance records, this preamble lead to Kela putting all the individual sounds together to form excellent vocalisations of drum & bass and techno beats. Similar protracted prefatory showmanship continued as Trip pretended to be loading up a disc on an mpc (played by Kela) and once all sounds had been loaded, Kela proceeded to “Blow ya
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Brotherz Grimm present, Killer Kela
Higher Learning, The Toucan Club, Cardiff
05/02/2003
My only previous first-hand knowledge of Killer Kela as a live performer was a shambles of a show put on up in Sheffield last October. Subsequently, I have found it hard to believe the hype surrounding this bloke as a live performer - and following his weak, EP-length debut album, he’s not exactly my favourite recording artist either. In Kela’s defence, human-beatboxing, especially when performed as a stand-alone discipline, has always presented a challenge to package whether that be on record or on stage and to be fair, there was little technically wrong with his effort at
Po-Na-Na apart from the way twenty minutes of material were stretched out across a whole uncoordinated club-night of deejays, breakers and tedious shout-outs. Still, what with many London heads continually telling me about the great shows he puts on in the Big Smoke, I was curious to find out if that Sheffield show was a mere one-off lapse in standards or yet another example of a UK hiphop artist reserving their A-game for inside the M25 and their B-Z game for everywhere else. As soon as I found out that Ruffstylz’s Brotherz Grimm Crew were putting on a Kela gig, I decided to make the journey from the West Country across to the Welsh capital to see if Kela would this time make a stab at living up to his massive reputation.
After spending much of the afternoon dealing with the regional railways’ usual fuckries, I eventually got to Cardiff and, as arranged, Hooked up with Secondson in the down-stairs bar of Cardiff’s Toucan Club at about 8.45pm. This setup whereby punters can socialise in the venue’s chilled-out lounge bar before packing into the upstairs hall is class and nurtures a positive and gregarious atmosphere. Being able to take advantage of such a genial holding space makes a refreshing change from the usual having to stand outside in the freezing cold for ages with a bunch of irritating posers and drunken queue-jumpers all prepared to trample everybody else if it means they get in five minutes quicker. Anyway, after a few pints and chitchat with local folk, I decided it was time to enter the show.
I’m used to open mic spots being the thing that happens when the show is literally all but over bar the shouting so I was surprised when the party music was cut so that local talent could spit their best lines. The night’s host, MC Dregz introduced half a dozen local mic warriors including one guy who insisted on starting his raps without the instrumental and some guy (I think he was called "Cascade") who dropped an amusing punchline about how he was going to hijack three camels and drive them into Bin Laden's cave. Regardless to whether these were genuine “freestyles,” they were all highly entertaining and made for a very slick and flowing segment of the evening. By now, the night’s diverse crowd were becoming increasingly hyper but where the hell was Kela? This absence was especially baffling because I gather Skeletrix and Kela’s sidekick MC Trip were already in the place…. 
Every now and then , Dregs would interrupt the music with announcements that Westwood was in town (why?) and the news that “kela’s on his way!” both of which were little consolation. Interrupting the flow of the music to bless the crowd with inaudible messages from Kela on a mobile phone was amusing the first time but noone paid £8 to hear muffled messages – even if they were by the man lauded as one of the UK’s finest beatboxers. When Kela did finally take to the stage at about 1am, Much was made of the fact that he’d Made the trip from London to Cardiff in five minutes or somemat? - surely, if he had left earlier, he would have been at the club earlier. Was he double-booked that night?
mind” with his impersonation of the instrumental from that Eve and Gwen Stefani track of the same name. Of course, there’s more to beatboxing these days than boom-bip kick/snare rhythms and Kela is at the forefront of vocal percussionists arranging more textured pieces. As if laying down the gauntlet to the next day’s big draw in Cardiff, Kela issued a quick outburst of Rhazel’s signature If your mother only knew - but his most successful rendition of a beat with vocals came with a very tight performance of the slinky Britney Spears/Neptunes Slave. Unlike Biz Markie, Doug E Fresh or even Rahzel, Kela does not yet have his own theme song - Furthermore, apart from an amusing prank call skit, his glitch-production-heavy The Permanent Marker LP failed to deliver anything memorable let alone a Kela Signature tune. Still, Kela has become known for a certain crowd-pleasing party piece, namely his vocal interpretation of Soul II Soul’s Back to life. Now obviously, noone can make lots of different noises with their mouth at the same time but beatboxing is a bit of audio magic whereby the performer breaks down a track into it’s key elements and chops between bass, drum and vocal with such rapid succession that the sounds coming out his mouth sound practically simultaneous. Unfortunately, like card tricks and other physical conjuring, if you look close enough or if the magician gets slack, the magic is revealed and deaded. Maybe Kela was tired or whatever but I found his performance of this track a disappointment when, a couple times, it came out sounding more like "'nack oo nife..." than the crystal-clear rendition I remember from the Sheffield show. With his best offerings Out the way, the only thing left to do was to let his sidekick do some decent but not memorable freestyles over his beats.
Dj Skeletrix then took control of proceedings with party bangers like Missy’s Work it, and apparently, the party vibes stayed strong till closing time with a few surprise performances. I hung around till 1.35am but couldn't drink anymore even if I had wanted to and since I had an interview lined up in the morning and a gig by a certain “Godfather of noise” to attend in the evening, I decided it was time to walk back to the hotel to get some sleep.
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