Review: @DJYodaUK at @TheForumHQ

I got the call to pop down to check out Break­fast of Cham­pi­ons at the For­um. I decided to head up to Kentish Town early so that I could check out the Sup­port Acts. It was just after 8pm when I strolled in.

The war­mup DJ had star­ted and the bar was empty so I could grab a beer and find a nice ‘com­fort­able’ pos­i­tion just behind the Sound and Light guys to settle down and watch the show from.

The first Act was a band called Dizraeli & The Small Gods — fron­ted by Dizraeli (lead Singer/Rapper/Musician) and Bel­lat­rix (Singer/Bassist/Beatboxer).
I can only describe their music as a fusion of hip hop, folk, jazz and rock. Each track was dif­fer­ent but the energy they put into each one was impress­ive. The crowd flocked to the front of the stage from their pre­vi­ous scattered spots and fully sup­por­ted the psy­che­del­ic group for pretty much the full hour set. Bel­lat­rix — who sounds a little like Bjork with her wail­ing — actu­ally stole the show with her beat­box­ing. It was a decent start, a tal­en­ted and altern­at­ive group that grasped the atten­tion of the audi­ence.

Next up was a half hour set from a tal­en­ted indi­vidu­al who goes by the monik­er of Reeps One. Now this is a guy who ‘makes music with his mouth’ so to say. All he needed was one mic and he had the grow­ing crowd enter­tained with his vari­ety of sounds and beats. The war­mup DJ then returned to spin some clas­sic hip hop to get every­one head-nod­ding in uni­son — Dre, Gang­starr, Mobb Deep, Nas, you name it.…the party is rock­ing.

This brings us to our main event — DJ Yoda’s Break­fast Of Cham­pi­ons. The Lon­don-born Dee­jay has put togeth­er an 11-man col­lect­ive of UK musi­cians and emcees which fea­ture Rex Dom­ino and Mouse Out­fit mem­bers Sparkz & Truthos Mufasa. Stretched out across the stage they played out tracks from the new album includ­ing the single ‘The Bad­dest’ whilst DJ Yoda spun records behind them. For a guy who has worked with the likes of The Jungle Broth­ers and M.O.P. this is a thought­ful and brave pro­ject by him to form this col­lec­tion of UK tal­ent and you could see the hap­pi­ness and sat­is­fac­tion on his face as he over­saw the res­ults of his pro­ject play­ing out stress-free in the packed ven­ue. The idea of a live hip hop band is catch­ing on with the legendary DJ Premi­er get­ting in on the act too and it works when executed well. One of the band mem­bers called Onk­ar — had his moment, get­ting off his trum­pet and on the mic to sing a num­ber. All the band mem­bers per­formed in sync and the crowd respon­ded well. The vibe was good, the crowd was buzz­ing and the event had a good atmo­sphere all round.

Lastly, and cer­tainly not least, big up to the I Am Hip Hop crew for invit­ing me down to this Event. And big up to all the people who go to events and sup­port Artists no mat­ter how small or (un)known they are. It might not have been my usu­al ‘cup of tea’ but nev­er­the­less proved to be an inter­est­ing and dif­fer­ent night. A good exper­i­ence over­all. Peace.

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Ranj Bans

Ranjit Bans is a Pro­fes­sion­al Pho­to­graph­er work­ing at www.magiclifephotography.co.uk, a fath­er of two and Hip Hop enthu­si­ast from the back end of the 80’s through to the 90’s.

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