DMC World DJ Championships Hammersmith Palais
2005
Another year, another DMC, and this time, bizarrely enough, another venue. Following on from the bare and gritty Brixton Academy, and Shepherds Bush Empire, the 2005 DMC world Final took place at the cosy surroundings of the Hammersmith Palais.
The choice of location proved somewhat confusing for one of my colleagues, who found himself at the Apollo with a bunch of Greebo metal kids…not really the right crowd somehow. As well as the change of location, the DMC’s also had to go for a Sunday/Monday slot, rather than the traditional ‘weekender ‘ slot, but this didn’t seem to make too much of an impact on the crowd as both nights were rammed to the rafters. Whether this was a reflection on the continuing popularity of the DMC’s of a fair reflection on the support acts, 7yr old kids included remains to be seen.
The Sunday night was the Battle for World Supremacy, and Team Championships. The Battle for Supremacy has seen some illustrious winners; DJ Kodh (who beat Skully in 2000), DJ Netik, Tigerstyle, and Akakabe in 2004.
This year, the hype was all about Matman, who after a fairly straight forward win over Final of Norway went out to runner up Irie of Holland. To be honest, the general attitude of the competitors seemed pretty poor, and although Matman was obviously saving the best till last it was still a major disappointment that he went out so early.
Germany’s Pro Zeiko was the overall winner beating I-Dee (USA) and Gem (Irl) on the way to facing off against Irie. The battles were on the whole pretty uninspiring, and never really reached the heights of previous years.
The same could also be said for the team battle, where the 3 time defending Champs C2C absolutely smashed it. The other teams were nowhere near them…except maybe Indonesia…but C2C showed EXACTLY why they are the best in the world. Their set was perfect, not one single blemish that I could detect, and the set they repeated on the Monday night wasn’t as good as the one they did on the Sunday. The set was a perfect blend, not a battle tear up, but more of a musical composition, and had the capacity crowd going wild. Truly they were worthy champions.
Support on the Sunday came from Conspicuous, the 7yr old DJ kid, Scratch from the Roots, and DJ Muggz with the Gza, not the Rza as he was introduced as…. Gza smacked it. Showed why he’s the best Wu MC, and totally redeemed performances from Raekwon, and Ghostface that were just better than wack. Scratch pulled a wicked beatbox/loopstation routine off, using a mixture of the two to recreate a load of well know tunes, like ‘Drop it’, and showed it isn’t JUST Rahzel that should be a must see from the Roots. The Sunday was worth going just to see Gza, Scratch and C2C alone.
The Monday was just as packed from all accounts, and the entertainment was slightly better than the previous night. The 10 strong line-up for the main event featured Muzzell as the UK entry, amongst the likes of Irie from Holland (again), Izoh (Jap), Unkur (Ger), Pfel (Fra) and defending champ I-Emerge from the US. The talk was that it might be a close fought title, with Pfel likely to be I-Emerge’s toughest competition.
Kid Sid from Sweden set the early tempo, with a corking set, but one you felt wasn’t really going to with the whole lot, followed by Muzzell. There was a lot of anticipation for Muzzells routine, but it just didn’t come off. Musically the set was sound, and quite impressive though the ridiculously fast scratching was, it just wasn’t consistent enough to win the whole lot. Irie, and Izoh produced very competent and quality turnouts meaning a top 3 placement for Muzzell was gone, before the big two; Pfel and I-Emerge.
Although Pfel seemed to pull a set worthy of winning, I-Emerge managed to just about retain his title, and by a very close margin as the voting showed:
1st: I-Emerge (USA) – 28 Points
2nd: Pfel (France) – 24 Points
3rd: Izoh (Japan) – 20 Points
Overall, the standard of the DMC’s seems to be slipping. The last 3-4 years has seen a definite decline, and a lack of innovation that brings the champs to a more open audience…more and more the winners seem more introverted, with the emphasis on technique, and introspective skills, rather than rocking a crowd, and giving them a decent show.
This is clearly something that needs to be addressed before the next generation of DJ’s pass this by, and the DMC’s loose their appeal.
Peas.
- Mr. Lingo
- Photo credit: Nics
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