REVIEW: BLATANTLY BLUNT (@blatantlyblunt) CELEBRATE 10 YEARS FT @FRSHRZ @bigCAKES @GEEBAGULAR @confuciusmc @ShaoDowMusic @MicallParknsun ‏ @SCRUFIZZER @Heavytrackerz

Nearly any­one who reads this will agree that inde­pend­ent media is not an easy game to be in. It’s a hard grind, so to run an inde­pend­ent media plat­form for 10 years is a big achieve­ment. That’s exactly what Blatantly Blunt were cel­eb­rat­ing on Decem­ber 16^th at Junc­tion House, Dal­ston with a night ded­ic­ated to the type of Hip Hop and Grime they’ve been sup­port­ing on their web­site, radio show and live events since 2007.  In asso­ci­ation with Hooch­inoo, anoth­er plat­forms that’s been back­ing the scene for years, Blatantly Blunt founder Nick Rus­sell had sor­ted out a ser­i­ous lineup of emcees and DJs for a show­case of tal­ent from the over­lap­ping genres of the Lon­don music scene. Nick was on the mic intro­du­cing each act with big Yet­izm run­ning the wheels.

The night opened with a group that have really impressed me this year, from the qual­ity of their out­put to their work rate, Hip Hop fash­ion con­nois­seurs the FRSHRS. Unfor­tu­nately, I missed their per­form­ance, I got there just as they fin­ished, but after see­ing them per­form a few times in 2017 I know they brought the same energy, lyr­ic­al slick­ness and good vibes that has seen them build a sol­id, grow­ing fan base for their soul­ful, pos­it­ive Hip Hop.

The first per­form­ance I did catch in full was from my man Gee Bag. Fresh from tak­ing 3^rd place at the 2017 EOW World Final in Prague, Gee brought the same level of lyr­i­cism and stage pres­ence that got him in that top 3. We got treated to some rid­dims from his new pro­ject with DJ Down­stroke, with the man him­self hold­ing down the decks, and Gee is def­in­itely keep­ing his levels up. Kissy K’s mak­ing a rare appear­ance on the album, and Gee man­aged to get him on stage to per­form it.

The next per­former was anoth­er emcee who’s had an impress­ive year, put­ting in a lot of work includ­ing sup­port­ing Jeh­st and Kate Tem­pest, Con­fucius MC hit the stage with his unique style of lyr­i­cism wrapped in a real laid back flow. He put down his bars on some raw boom bap before flip­ping it up on the last track ‘Dif­fer­ent End­ings’. The beats some double time, exper­i­ment­al elec­tron­ic shit that got the heads inside mov­ing, still with that laid back flow and dope bars. Go check it on Con­fucius’ ‘Art­form’ EP.

UK Hip Hop OG and Blatantly Blunt radio host Mic­all Parkn­sun stepped up next and took the energy in the room up a level. Char­ging round the stage, the man behind Me, Myself and Akai worked through a set of his MPC pro­duced music from before and through­out the 10 years that Blatantly Blunt has been act­ive. ‘So What’ from his 2005 debut ‘The Work­ing Class Dad’ had the whole crowd vib­sing and showed that dope music stays banging, qual­ity can take the test of time.

Big Cakes is anoth­er OG of the scene, and every time I see the broth­er per­form I ques­tion wheth­er I’ve ever seen any­one inter­act with a crowd as good as he does. On top of being a crazy emcee, between tracks it’s a mix of real talk and stand up that elev­ates the atmo­sphere wherever he’s per­form­ing. This set was clas­sic Cakes, and like Parky he ran through a careers worth of fire from his huge body of work, right up to his latest release ‘No Excuses’. The track of his per­form­ance was ‘Toast’; the heart­felt beat and bars had every­one inside spit­ting along with the hook.

With all the Hip Hop done, there was a break before set­ting the Grime off with a fully ori­gin­al act. Des­pite grow­ing up on Wu-Tang, I’ve nev­er seen a brudda bring nun­chaku on stage and use them, in the dark, cas­u­ally pulling off ridicu­lously high kicks and speak­ing Japanese…all while spit­ting Grime with crazy energy. I have now that I’ve seen Shaodow. Dude is an entity into him­self – go check his track Katana Flow, it’s about his love for swords, and keep an eye out for him on Ninja War­ri­or UK soon.

The tone was set nicely for the head­line act. The HeavyTrackerz have been pro­du­cing bangers for years and have worked with some of the biggest names in Grime, now some of the biggest emcees in the world. They put down a fire set, mix­ing in ori­gin­al pro­duc­tions with bangers from the early days of Grime to now, show­ing the caliber of DJ and pro­du­cers they are and get­ting the heads in the spot hyped.

To end the night off, Grime emcee Screw­fizzer rolled through with a bag of emcees shut down the night, bring­ing the energy and raw­ness that has taken the Lon­don born genre to the levels it has in the last few years. With the per­fect end to a dope night, Blatantly Blunt can move into the next 10 years of their mis­sion with confidence.