Review: ONE LOVE With Congo Natty, Logic, Amy True, Skibadee & Harry Shotta, Mighty Moe & DJ Steady, Rodney P & Guests

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Thursday 28th Septem­ber saw a char­ity event at Brix­ton Jamm set up by the straight talk­ing Lon­don rap vet­er­an Logic & The People’s Army. 

All pro­ceeds from the event, includ­ing a raffle for Carib­bean meals at the deli­cious Turtle Bay res­taur­ant went to the One Love Thera­peut­ic Cen­ter in Ethiopia, a day care cen­ter that provides pas­tor­al, edu­ca­tion­al and med­ic­al ser­vices for vul­ner­able chil­dren with dis­ab­il­it­ies, all in a coun­try that still has with­in it a cul­ture of turn­ing a blind eye to such children. 

On the bill was a feast of music well worthy the £15 tick­et price, includ­ing King­pin and Frshrz, Rod­ney P, Mighty Mo of Heart­less Crew fame, Amy True, and Mav­er­ick Sabre. Head­lining the even­ing’s enter­tain­ment was the power­ful duo of Skibadee and Harry Shotta, powered by the quint­es­sen­tial jungle/DnB selec­tion of legendary DJ Congo Natty.

The Thursday even­ing got off to a slow start, though with around 200 tick­ets sold in advance the full fest­iv­it­ies were bound to start at some point. Jazz T as always held it down on the decks before things got mov­ing, spin­ning a nice selec­tion of old sku tracks includ­ing Das EFX’s ‘Real Hip Hop’ and a couple of clas­sic Gang­starr tracks.

First of the live acts to bless the stage was King­pin, who spat a hand­ful of verses warm­ing up the mic for guests Frshrz who impressed with a couple of tracks in pro­mo­tion of their new self titled EP, a record that fea­tures not only Rod­ney P and Logic by also Si Philli of PLC / Philli n Dotz fame.

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RU1FAM affil­i­ate and Peoples Army sol­dier, Amy True took the stage shortly after, with her deli­cious vocals and pos­it­ive lyr­i­cism set things up nicely for guest Mav­er­ick Sabre. The crowd was summoned to gath­er by the front of the stage for a short and intim­ate acous­tic set from the Hack­ney born Irish­man, famed for his excel­lent cov­ers and fea­tures with Chase & Status. The room fell silent while he pro­ceeded to enthrall the huddled crowd with a short selec­tion of songs that would­n’t have been out of place at a folk/roots fest­iv­al includ­ing a sweet per­form­ance of ‘We Don’t Know’.

Next up was legend of the scene and ori­gin­al UK split­ter Rod­ney P, with Logic back­ing him up for a brief jaunt on stage that included a rendi­tion of ‘Peaches’ and the bouncy good vibes of ‘The Nice Up’ and ‘Live Up’. Swiftly after­wards, Mighty Mo & Dj Steady stepped up the tempo and came through with some bars backed by big­ger bass, a fit­ting pre­lude for what was about to come.

Congo Natty had dis­creetly stepped up behind the wheels of steel and lit a stick of incense whilst Skibadee and Harry Shotta took centre stage. Congo con­tin­ued his won­der­ful tra­di­tion of play­ing a couple of Bob Mar­ley songs at the start of his set, with Redemp­tion Song and One Love being the songs of choice on the even­ing, encour­aging a fur­ther sense of unity between mem­bers of the crowd as many bel­lowed out the well known lyrics.

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And then, before we even knew it, the whole room was thrown into a feast of furi­ously delivered Brit­ish club lyr­i­cism, lacing the clas­sic jump up DnB / Jungle rid­dims expertly selec­ted by Congo Natty. For the last hour or so of the even­ing every­one was get­ting prop­erly stuck in, with two of the most cel­eb­rated MCs of our gen­er­a­tion smash­ing it out as they always do. Com­bined with Congo Natty, a true guard­i­an of the Jungle / Jump Up scene, the trio could­n’t fail to set it off and get Brix­ton Jamm rolling. Every­body went home happy, and all in the aid of a good cause.

Big Up all the per­formers and the crowd for mak­ing it a wicked Thursday night dance.

The fol­low­ing two tabs change con­tent below.
A freel­ance journ­al­ist content/copywriter who formerly wrote for Word­play magazine, Phil Tang has been a fan of hip hop for over 20 years. Hav­ing writ­ten a dis­ser­ta­tion on the com­modi­fic­a­tion of hip hop and even been an emcee him­self, he has always been rel­at­ively well placed to com­ment­ate on the music and the scene.He is cur­rently writ­ing for I Am Hip Hop Magazine and pur­su­ing dreams of world dom­in­a­tion, equal­ity for plants, and a ver­it­ably over­stacked cheese board.

About Phil Tang

A freelance journalist content/copywriter who formerly wrote for Wordplay magazine, Phil Tang has been a fan of hip hop for over 20 years. Having written a dissertation on the commodification of hip hop and even been an emcee himself, he has always been relatively well placed to commentate on the music and the scene.He is currently writing for I Am Hip Hop Magazine and pursuing dreams of world domination, equality for plants, and a veritably overstacked cheese board.