REVIEW | KOFI STONE: A STAR-STUDDED SHOWCASE OF BIRMINGHAM’S FINEST LYRICIST AT KOKO LONDON

By Mas Law • On Reviews

Photo Cred­it : Adam Swainsbury

I arrived at the illus­tri­ous KOKO, ready to soak in a won­der­ful night of pure hip-hop. As I entered, the ven­ue was packed with energy — people were wild­in’ out every­where. I looked up and saw Jords on stage, tak­ing the crowd through his cata­logue. He delivered a mas­ter­ful dis­play of show­man­ship and lyr­i­cism. Just the week before, I had the priv­ilege of wit­ness­ing his great­ness at the 100 Club, where he was backed by a live band. I’m a total fan of what this guy brings to the table, it’s pure hip-hop, packed with power­ful words and incred­ible sound. Tracks like Mar­ley Flow had me singing along. He ended his set with the anthem Beau­ti­ful Day to Get Paid, a track that’s been liv­ing in my head rent-free lately. And I swear it’s unre­leased. Damn.

After Jords, we had the pleas­ure of con­tinu­ing the jour­ney with man like Faux. His blend of wavy beats per­fectly com­ple­men­ted his singing style, and the crowd was com­pletely immersed. There was a real sense of love in the build­ing as he flowed through a med­ley of tracks. You could see how proud he was to land that sup­port slot in a packed-out KOKO. It was a great moment, with excel­lent stage pres­ence and a stel­lar deliv­ery that reflec­ted his pride in per­form­ing in his hometown.

This was the per­fect segue to the man of the moment. Hail­ing from Birm­ing­ham, he stepped out in a fresh sal­mon Adi­das two-piece, rock­ing clean cornrows, ready to show how Brum Town represents.

You could tell he was genu­inely humbled by the sold-out crowd, the place abso­lutely buzz­ing in anti­cip­a­tion. Song after song, the crowd sang along in uni­son. In that moment, he truly exuded star power.

What stood out most was the music itself, it wasn’t driv­en by the typ­ic­al drill-heavy or trap-heavy sound. This was pure hip-hop, presen­ted by a lyr­i­cist who embod­ies the essence of the art form. Tracks like Stor­ies in Pyja­mas hit hard, espe­cially know­ing his dad was in the audi­ence. The way he show­cased fam­ily cul­ture was a test­a­ment to his lyr­i­cism. Sim­il­arly, the track ded­ic­ated to his moth­er was some­thing truly spe­cial. Watch­ing her and his fam­ily wit­ness his per­form­ance was a heart­warm­ing moment filled with pride. When he delivered the song, it radi­ated pure love.

He delivered a qual­ity set filled with pos­it­iv­ity, Black pride, con­scious­ness, and lyr­ic­al prowess, all without ever veer­ing into a dark­er tone. If this had been my first time exper­i­en­cing him, I’d have left as a fan, just like my part­ner did. But as an OG who’s been fol­low­ing the scene, I can con­fid­ently say that the future of UK hip-hop has sol­id representatives.

Salute to Kofi Stone, and here’s to your con­tin­ued progression!

The fol­low­ing two tabs change con­tent below.
My Facebook profileMy Instagram profile

Mas Law

Artist/Producer hail­ing from NW Lon­don. Enig­mat­ic storyteller and End of the Weak Eng­land Organiser.

About Mas Law

Artist/Producer hailing from NW London. Enigmatic storyteller and End of the Weak England Organiser.