The Roots Brixton Academy
Having already rocked the more intimate setting of the Jazz Café earlier in the year, the boys from the 2-1-5th are back in town just as the weather has started to change for the better. With a reputation as the definitive live band in hip-hop the Roots crew had a lot to live up to, and the venue was quickly filled to capacity as all shapes and sizes (and not just the "coffee shop chicks and white dudes" that Common whinged about on ‘Act Too’) shuffled to find an unobscured viewpoint.
The first support act was Northern State, a trio of female rappers with a live drummer, guitarist and occasional beat boxer. The ladies style and subject matter owed a great deal to the Beastie Boys circa ‘Fight For Your Right’ and they got a polite reception from the Saturday night crowd. Next up was K-OS, a native of Toronto, with a sound that was definitely unique to these jaded ears. Accompanied by a guitarist and a man named Santos laying down percussion on Indian drums, K-OS won the crowd over with a mixture of the laid back charm which flipped suddenly into Saul Williams-like intensity as soon as the beats dropped. He also displayed his versatility, peppering his choruses with the soulful baritone that hushed the crowd (in a good way). Shortee Blitz span a mixture of well known party starters and his personal faves (Ty’s ‘We Don’t Care’ sounds sick on a loud system, by the way).
The stage lights dipped at around 11 and anticipation reached fever pitch as the Roots’ keyboard player Kamaal, stepped on stage triggering a looped sample of Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Going On?’. Slowly but surely members of the Illafifth Dynasty sauntered onto stage, with Black Thought and ?Love receiving the loudest applause. The Academy was then shaken by possibly the hardest kick drum known to man, as Thought spat "Go London, It’s your birthday….", before a mammoth recreation of 50 Cent’s ‘In Da Club’ bum-rushed the eardrums of the spectators. Black Thought (who did not seem to be operating at full power until about 3 songs in) flung insightful lyrics at the crowd with Scratch acting as his hype man. ’In Da Club’ morphed into an equally hard, live re-lick of ’Grindin’ and the crowd remained captivated by the band’s near telepathic tightness. Highlights of the set included ‘Water’ (without the arty white noise that follows the song on the album) , ’Proceed’, ‘Thought @ Work’ (which was flipped into Nas’ ‘Made You Look’ with a little manipulation of the ‘Apache’ break) and ’Break You Off’, which was enhanced by some more slick work on the Indian tabla. The Roots line-up was bolstered by the inclusion of guitarist Martin Luther, (who won a few new fans with his a capella interlude), Living Color’s Vernon Reid on guitar (who drew a mixed response with his Hendrixed out version of the American National anthem) and Cody Chestnutt (rocking a hat that could have come straight from Sherwood Forest) tore the house down with his cameo on ‘The Seed 2.0’. As usual the crew members’ solos won the fans’ approval with ?Love battling the bongo player, Hub punishing the bass and Kamaal running through ‘Award Tour’, ‘Hot in Herre’, ‘Planet Rock’, ’Peter Piper’, ’I Need Love’(!) and ‘Push It’. And then it seemed all too early before the experience was over. The strains of Edwin Starr’s ‘War’ boomed from the speakers before the Roots vacated the stage to a standing ovation (From us oiks on the balcony, anyway). The encore everyone hoped for never materialised as the unmistakable crackle of vinyl (None of the bands had used a DJ, so it was a pretty big hint) filled the venue. Once again, I felt as though I’d been spoilt with a night of quality live hip-hop, and with the Kung Fu crew working one of the two chill out areas, there is no way that even the stingiest of heads could have felt short changed.
- Kobi | profile
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