REVIEW | ROOTS PICNIC: A HIP HOP UTOPIA AT CRYSTAL PALACE BOWL

I feel like no bet­ter moment could have happened for hip hop fans in the UK. This was a week­end for tick­ing off those buck­et-list artists you’ve always wanted to see.

We entered the park to find J.PERIOD and Black Thought per­form­ing a live mix­tape, which felt truly fit­ting con­sid­er­ing the num­ber of J.PERIOD mix­tapes cir­cu­lat­ing through­out my teens. The atmo­sphere really felt like a pic­nic because of how chilled everything was. It was small enough to eas­ily meet up with friends, but big enough to lose them in the same instant.

One by one, Black Thought and J.PERIOD called out a pleth­ora of spe­cial guests to come and rock the stage. We arrived to see man like Benny the Butcher going through a selec­tion of hits. Pure fire was being shelled. Hip hop was def­in­itely in the building.

There was more fire in the cham­ber, as they weren’t done with their list of sur­prise guests. Next, they intro­duced one of the hot­test rap­pers in the scene: Raps­ody! The big hat and the dress sense showed exactly how we define and cre­ate cul­ture. In true J.PERIOD fash­ion, she came out shelling songs such as ‘God Has an Afro’ over a dif­fer­ent instru­ment­al. She even blessed us with a ver­sion of ‘Ibti­haj’ in hon­our of the late, great D’Angelo.

One thing I love about Raps­ody is the real star power she pos­sesses when doing her thing. More star power was brought to the stage in the form of Com­mon. He came out to the clas­sic ‘I Used to Love H.E.R.’, as the hip hop fans around me sang along like a delight­ful karaōke crew.

There was a beau­ti­ful, feel-good energy in the air, espe­cially when he per­formed ‘Come Close’ over the legendary Bob Mar­ley track ‘Wait­ing in Vain’. J.PERIOD was drop­ping some excep­tion­al flips, and through it all, with each guest, Black Thought kept giv­ing us doses of dope­ness. It’s like he can lit­er­ally rap forever.

In true MC fash­ion, and some­thing rarely seen on plat­forms like this, Com­mon was spray­ing some on-point, off-the-dome bars. The gift of true free­style was on full dis­play as he and Black Thought went back-to-back over a Bob Mar­ley instrumental.

I think the loudest I heard the crowd was when Com­mon per­formed ‘The Light’. It was a blanket of pure joy. The whole audi­ence became this joy­ful choir, full of feel-good vibes.

J.PERIOD let a clas­sic drum loop bang and, one by one, began rein­tro­du­cing each artist who had rocked the set to come up and join a cypher. Black Thought star­ted shelling, then out came the pres­ence of Queen Sa-Roc, step­ping in front of a packed Crys­tal Palace Bowl and doing what she does best with her dope flows and queen-like pres­ence. She came out and caught a clean body.

Then Queen Raps­ody came out to join the cypher and spat her verse from ‘Raw’. But J.PERIOD and Black Thought weren’t quite fin­ished with us yet. They had one more big sur­prise in the chamber.

Out came one of my inspir­a­tions in this hip hop scene. The legendary Yasi­in Bey, also known as Mos Def, took to the stage. He arrived with one of my favour­ite verses ever, from the amaz­ing track ‘Defin­i­tion’.

Again, I just want to state how much this felt like a hip hop uto­pia. Mos Def was in fine form and went through the songs with Com­mon and Black Thought as his hype men. The way they were boun­cing off each oth­er felt like a true vis­ion of hip hop in its purest form. Per­fect for what was, after all, a hip hop picnic.

The day was in full swing, and it was time for the UK to stand up. We sure bloody did.

What was ori­gin­ally meant to be the pic­nic open­er had now become an essen­tial moment fol­low­ing that piece of hip hop his­tory. This leggy red­head, wear­ing a beau­ti­ful short green dress with a match­ing head­piece, looked like a sexy Pois­on Ivy. With a mic stand covered in red roses, Queen Sasha Keable took to the stage in all her glory.

As her voice filled the Bowl, you could tell that this line-up was pure qual­ity. The band was sharp and fully locked in, with ‘Act Right’ as her open­ing num­ber. Tune by tune, she brought out the karaōke spir­it of the crowd, and the sin­galongs were real. Major cred­it to Sasha for hold­ing it down in this hip hop-heavy crowd.

As the even­ing set in, I think we were ready for head­line energy. The band took to the stage. This was the moment for The Roots to shine, and shine they did. What a performance.

Black Thought took centre stage. Questlove was driv­ing a four-by-four drum pat­tern on the toms, accom­pan­ied by a three-piece brass sec­tion that included a sousa­phone. Every mem­ber of this eight-piece band deserves their own mention.

The Roots began tak­ing us on a jour­ney through their cata­logue. The amaz­ing part of this per­form­ance was that watch­ing the band felt like watch­ing Black Thought and The Tempta­tions. The mov­ing parts, the coördin­a­tion of the dances and the way they became Black Thought’s back­ing sing­ers and dan­cers were a sight to behold.

This wasn’t just one man rap­ping with a band. This was a band mov­ing as one entity to give you the best audi­ovisu­al exper­i­ence. Spe­cial men­tion must go to the sound engin­eers, as you could feel the music in your chest while still hear­ing every sound clearly.

Tune after tune, with tracks such as ‘Step into the Realm’ and ‘What They Do’, there was no doubt­ing why this is one of the best bands in the world, fea­tur­ing eas­ily one of the greatest MCs of a generation.

What bet­ter way to cap off a day of pure hip hop excel­lence than to bring out the man, the legend, the extraordin­ary Nas!

The back­drop turned to flames and fiery reds, with his name blaz­ing across it. The legendary oper­at­ic strings from the intro to ‘Hate Me Now’ began blar­ing, prompt­ing the instant reac­tion of a thou­sand phones fly­ing into the air.

Star­boy time!

Nas was in fine form. Plus, this was one of those once-in-a-life­time exper­i­ences you don’t get every day: Nas backed by The Roots.

He went through a med­ley of hits and had the crowd fully absorbed in the moment. As a hip hop boy raised in the ’90s, this was one of the biggest fest­ivals of the year. When you have a cata­logue as vast as Nas’s, you can’t please every­body. Say­ing that, I do believe he chose the right selec­tion of bangers to fire back-to-back.

After he hit us with a quick-fire set, The Roots brought the day to an end. Spe­cial men­tion to the gui­tar­ist, who took us on an incred­ible jour­ney with his solo.

As Black Thought blared the phrase, “Can you dig it?” around the Crys­tal Palace Bowl, I thought: I sure bloody can!

I’ll be there the next time The Roots Pic­nic comes to the UK. Hope­fully, this was the first of many.

Know­ing all the amaz­ing artists who were in town, I think the hip hop romantic in me wanted to see those clas­sic sur­prises, like Erykah Badu com­ing out with Com­mon or Lauryn Hill sur­pris­ing us along­side Nas.

But the hip hop real­ist in me knows that I’ve just wit­nessed history!