Review: Cormega (@Iamcormega) Live At Chip Shop BXTN London

Queensbridge’s finest – Cor­mega was return­ing to the Brix­ton Chip Shop to launch his new book, ‘Under­stand­ing the True Mean­ing’. A reflec­tion and ana­lys­is of his album on its fif­teenth anniversary. I felt it was the per­fect way to cel­eb­rate, for a hip hop fiend like myself there really is noth­ing bet­ter than get­ting inside the head of a rap­per and insight into what makes them write as they do.

A very intim­ate ven­ue, I love the concept of the Chip Shop, it’s a small recluse where real hip hop fans can go, it felt very homely and the food is great too! I was dig­gin’ the fact there seemed to have been an influx of Queens rap­pers per­form­ing at this ven­ue as they def­in­itely hold a spe­cial place in my heart.

In anti­cip­a­tion of the book sign­ing I ordered my copy in advance so I had ample time to take it all in and pro­cess it. Read­ing through the first few pages of the book it is very clear Mega has had a huge impact on the lives of many, both indir­ectly through the con­tent of his music, ‘[People]Tell me how my music helped them get through tough times or saved their life’ but also on a per­son­al level through form­ing long last­ing mean­ing­ful friend­ships with people he has encountered. This says a lot for his char­ac­ter, the book echoes what you see is what you get with him, which also means what he puts on his tracks is also very real.

In con­trast, one piece of fic­tion he men­tions on this album is, ‘Live Ya Life’ prob­ably my favor­ite from the album. Hip hop is often cri­ti­cized for being miso­gyn­ist­ic, which is why I really appre­ci­ate this track, it shows empathy towards women, moth­ers in par­tic­u­lar. He wanted it to be, ‘heart­felt’ in every aspect which it was.

I could relate to a lot of things men­tioned in the book, some advice which I wish I had been giv­en sev­er­al years ago. One take away from the book was the pos­it­iv­ity, this was a man who had been through a lot in his life and wanted to share it with us, ‘That is my goal, to warn oth­ers. It’s my respons­ib­il­ity to try to tell people  what they should avoid and try to help them’.

‘The idea of struggle is a uni­ver­sal thing and every­body res­on­ates with things they can relate to’

There is a lot of talk about people not believ­ing in him and fake friends which we can all relate too. A great read if you are look­ing for some inspir­a­tion I would recom­mend it.

As Cor­mega signed by book, instantly I felt a vibe of a very pos­it­ive indi­vidu­al, cool calm and very humble, I could tell he was grate­ful to be there and appre­ci­ated all the love he was get­ting from his fans.

I was really look­ing for­ward to the show, as the ven­ue was so com­pact it was the per­fect place to con­nect with oth­er hip hop heads, I instantly engaged in con­ver­sa­tion with sev­er­al people and felt very wel­come. I even met someone who had traveled all the way from Ire­land on his own just to see Mega, he had been listen­ing to him since he was 14 years old and this was also his first time in Lon­don.

Warm­ing up for Mega was Da Flyy Hoo­ligan from Har­les­den, rep­ping hard with the UK Hip Hop, I was feel­in’ him his flow was smooth and his beats were tough, he reminded me of the 90’s. On the decks there was Bill Biznizz and Teddy Ted with DJ Harmony.It seemed every­one in the place was a real fan of hip hop and knew Cormega’s dis­co­graphy, as soon as he stepped out to per­form the crowd pressed inwards, it was mid­night and people were drunk, the wait for Mega to grace the mic was too much and a couple of people were over excited to see him and rushed the decks, ‘What have you been drink­ing’ asked Mega, someone replied ‘Hen­nessy’. Mega laughed, ‘It had to be that Henny!’ It felt as though he had been in this situ­ation many times and it wasn’t any­thing he couldn’t handle.  Mega had to repeatedly ask the crowd to calm down and reminded us where he had come from and for him to even make it to Eng­land was a huge achieve­ment and think­ing about it, it is crazy we all wanted him to return again so con­tin­ued to enjoy the night.

I wasn’t expect­ing it but sud­denly I heard, ‘Killaz Theme’ and I LOVE this track!!! The beat is so heavy it feels like para­noia, I think the snare sets it off, some creep­ing, watch your back, things hid­ing in the shad­ows kinda beat and that snare is your para­noia that you have to over­come. This beats are deep­er than most lyr­ics nowdays,I miss this era. Rest in Peace to Prodigy, hear­ing this was emo­tion­al, it made me nos­tal­gic and the crowd remin­isced, we were all aware of how much Mega had worked with Prodigy in the past, which made appre­ci­at­ing the greats in the here and now even more import­ant.

And then the crowd was shout­ing at Mega to drop his verse from Affirm­at­ive Action!!! How lucky I felt in that moment to be in that room! Mega went on to per­form more track from his, ‘True Mean­ing’ album. He told us, ‘now you will see why Mega is the poet’ and indeed we did, the crowd was abso­lutely feel­ing every word he had to say and it was a beau­ti­ful thing.

Great night, nice vibes, big respect to Cor­mega for com­ing out and doing his thing. Much love to the Brix­ton Chip Shop for mak­ing it hap­pen, I look for­ward to reach­ing more shows there!

Here is a flash­back to our inter­view with Cor­mega Last year:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv15maV2Hm8&t=56s[/youtube]

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Faizah Cyanide

Faizah works in clin­ic­al research by pro­fes­sion and has been an avid Hip Hop lov­er since the early 90’s, hav­ing cre­ated her own Hip Hop event, ‘Breakin’ Bound­ar­ies’ in the early 2000’s which was pre­dom­in­antly based around the concept of bboy battles, she has worked with sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al events pro­moters and dan­cers to inspire oth­ers through this art­form.

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