REVIEW | FULL CIRCLE IN SOUTH LONDON: HIP HOP LIVE AT SOUTH FACING FESTIVAL, CRYSTAL PALACE BOWL

This was a lil bit of a per­son­al full circle exper­i­ence for me, and I sup­pose it may have felt sim­il­ar for many South Lon­don­ers when stand­ing in Crys­tal Palace Bowl on 1^st August 2024… to have grown up play­ing in the park we were now see­ing some of our favour­ite Hip Hop artists performing!

[or is it just nos­tal­gic me?!]

It was with great pleas­ure that I was able to attend and wit­ness Hip Hop live in Crys­tal Palace Park, just a year after I had my ‘Hip Hop’s 50^th’ art install­a­tion in the park’s ‘Crys­tal Palace Call­ing’ Phone Box Gal­lery which I planned in cel­eb­ra­tion of 50 years since the infam­ous Sedgewick Aven­ue Party put Hip Hop on the his­tory map! Even at that time I had a thought — would­n’t it be great to have some of our faves per­form­ing in the bowl! — well some­body heard me!

I was just fin­ish­ing my bag search when I heard Slim Kid address the crowd on the mic — said a quick hello to some peeps com­ing in, and dashed in to catch every drop I could (lit­er­ally of which — after Phar­cyde con­cluded — involved almost 60 minutes of rain!)

I was drawn to the left of the stage ini­tially and per­haps sub­con­sciously — that was the spot I would sit with my Dad and broth­er to have a pic­nic on sum­mer week­ends as chil­dren, we’d walk from Rosend­ale Road up Gipsy Hill to Safe­way (now Sains­bury) and then round to the park, so it felt good to be an adult enjoy­ing the park again!

At that point, the sound was­n’t great and too many people chat­ter­ing (are you here for the music peeps?) so I posi­tioned myself more cent­ral and enjoyed watch­ing Imani dan­cing around the stage (so much energy!!)

I got a mes­sage across to someone in the crew that the mics wer­en’t loud enough and it soon picked up — phew! their set is always fun and I love to see the young­ers also rap­ping along (we par­ents have passed it down well!) with respect always passed to J Dilla by the group.

People then scattered for refresh­ments and I guess the loo as we were in the inbetween acts bit, so I wiggled down closer to the front as I get neck ache peep­ing between shoulders for too long and love to get a few snippets !

We were then put on pause.… as Da Rock­wilder (hands in the air!!) came on there was a sud­den light­en­ing bolt and thun­der clap and which instig­ated a health and safety haz­ard -!no crew allowed on deck!- so as they tracked the elec­tric­al storm, we ded­ic­ated Hip Hop­pers stood fast in our spots for 20, 30, 40.…50 odd minutes look­ing over at the clouds behind us, wait­ing for sun­shine and clearance!

For­tu­nately the per­form­ances wer­en’t cut short, De La star­ted on time, and The Roots straight behind!

I love De La, the guys are always so much fun, music­al and play­ful, with great graph­ics (slightly skewed by the fact the band kit had to be set up as De La were set up — I guess due to lost time) I always love a good graph­ic back­drop, and they did­n’t let us down, dais­ies, Dave, tapes, typo­graphy, and my beloved Sat­urdays illustration.

Talib joined and as Maseo said, stepped in for Plug 3 R.i.P Dave

Great crowd inter­ac­tion — and par­ti­cip­a­tion — a beau­ti­ful sight to see!

The Roots I have only seen once before, I think this time was better.

Corinne Bailey-Rae gues­ted in ‘You Got Me’ and the crowd were rocked by the power of the live band, the rhythm and gigantic­ness of their instru­ment­al con­trol plus dan­cing at the same time filled me with awe, they did many cov­er tunes and a few of their own, which for the true heads were good to hear.… some­times the band can be louder than the mic at gigs — sound engin­eers please take note — so at times Black Thought was a lil too quiet to really put across his bril­liance on the mic, but if you know, you know.

I loved this gig, the capa­city was right, the loc­a­tion too as the Bowl provides a nice slope so every­one can find a decent view­ing point. the range of ages in attend­ance was good to see, it’s bril­liant to wit­ness young people see­ing live acts and real instru­ments in action, and in Hip Hop espe­cially — I really do hope they became inspired !

all in all, Happy Vibes des­pite the rain, for­tu­nately it was warm so we dried off enough, and for­got once the music restarted!

Heads up, it was dis­played the fest­iv­al is return­ing — look out for Main Source Fest­iv­al 1/8/2025 and I will be tak­ing over Crys­tal Palace Call­ing early July‑2 August to get the park in the mood for more Hip Hop!

I look for­ward to see­ing who’s up next!

@sal_freckles pho­tos:©Sally Mur­row

@mainsourcefestivaluk

@crystalpalacecalling

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Salfreckles

Sally Mur­row aka Sal­freckles is a Lon­don­er who works in early edu­ca­tion, she has a back­ground in graph­ic design and finds inspir­a­tion for her art from hip hop rhymes and culture.

Latest posts by Salfreckles (see all)

• REVIEW | FULL CIRCLE IN SOUTH LON­DON: HIP HOP LIVE AT SOUTH FACING FEST­IV­AL, CRYS­TAL PALACE BOWL — August 6, 2024
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