REVIEW | LOWKEY AT JAZZ CAFÉ: MUSIC, RESISTANCE AND A VOICE FOR THE VOICELESS

By Faizah Cyanide • On Reviews , ,

Lowkey @ Jazz Café, 14 Sep 2025

Lowkey returned to London’s Jazz café for anoth­er sold-out show, the first of two that night and oth­er dates across the UK. The sheer demand is a test­a­ment to the love and loy­alty he com­mands as an artist who refuses to com­prom­ise or bow to cor­por­ate pres­sure, no mat­ter how much lob­by­ing is thrown his way. Cred­it also goes to the Jazz Café itself, which has res­isted calls to ban him and con­tin­ues to stand firm against censorship.

Even begin­ning in the queue, the atmo­sphere was elec­tric. Con­ver­sa­tions turned quickly to polit­ics as the show came just a day after the far-right “Free Speech” protests led by Tony Robin­son, remind­ing us why gath­er­ings like this are so essen­tial. Lowkey’s plat­form isn’t just about music; it’s about cre­at­ing space for anti-fas­cism, anti-racism, and col­lect­ive resistance.

The warm-up acts set the tone. Garz, a young Palestini­an rap­per from West Lon­don, declared that this was more than enter­tain­ment; it was about stand­ing up for our broth­ers and sis­ters world­wide, in every land that faces oppres­sion. In a time when any­one who is speak­ing up for justice is being vil­i­fied. It is so refresh­ing to go to an event where we can speak our minds for speak­ing out against gen­o­cide. Artist Haich then got the crowd ready for Lowkey, remind­ing us that we each have our own jour­ney, and it’s these nuances that make us all indi­vidu­als, but today we are here as one family.

When Lowkey finally stepped on stage to “Soundtrack to the Struggle,” the ven­ue erup­ted. Intro­duced as “a voice for the voice­less,” he imme­di­ately groun­ded the night in his trade­mark blend of lyr­ic­al fire and polit­ic­al con­vic­tion. He spoke about the absurdity of eld­erly pro­test­ers being arres­ted in Par­lia­ment Square for hold­ing plac­ards against gen­o­cide, before launch­ing into “Ter­ror­ist”, a track banned from Spo­ti­fy but still defi­antly per­formed word for word by the crowd. A track that almost had him banned on Spo­ti­fy, yet he will still con­fid­ently per­form it live, and remind us that he is actu­ally all about peace and love. This was one track the crowd knew word for word, prob­ably as many of us can relate to being deemed “ter­ror­ists” or oppos­ing gen­o­cide and oppression.

Anoth­er hook the crowd chanted wildly to was, “keep your hand on your gun”, which Lowkey ded­ic­ated to those who stand in the way, to risk life and limb, free­dom to artic­u­late a form of love to the people of Gaza.

Per­form­ing “Let­ter to the 1%” a cap­pella felt more power­ful as we could focus on every word. Giv­ing power to all those people who make soci­ety what it is, “those who risk their life to dig the coal from the ground for the mic I’m spit­ting on, and the phone your hold­ing now” which strikes harder as we see the suf­fer­ing in the cobalt mines in Congo.

Of course, the crowd went wild for “Fire in the Booth,” fol­lowed seam­lessly by “Alpha­bet Assas­sin” a show­case of his tech­nic­al bril­liance and ver­sat­il­ity. A standout moment came when Lowkey invited a fan, Chris, on stage to per­form “Obama Nation” along­side him, with the audi­ence roar­ing every bar back at them.

The night closed on a poignant note as Mai Khalil, cel­eb­rat­ing her birth­day, joined him for “Dear Ahmed,” “Ghosts of Gren­fell,” and the power­ful anthem “Palestine Will Nev­er Die.” Her soul­ful voice car­ried across the ven­ue, leav­ing the audi­ence vis­ibly moved.

The uni­fy­ing mes­sage from the show was in some of Lowkey’s last words, remind­ing us all that, “we have more in com­mon with a per­son seek­ing a safe haven in a dinghy in the Eng­lish Chan­nel than we will ever have with the bil­lion­aires on a yacht in the Chan­nel Islands”.

After the per­form­ance, Lowkey stayed for a meet-and-greet, sign­ing “Keep It Lowkey” t‑shirts as fans queued through­out the build­ing. Even after hours of music and mes­sage, the energy was still buzzing.

This wasn’t just a gig. It was a remind­er of why art mat­ters, why res­ist­ance mat­ters, and why voices like Lowkey’s can nev­er be silenced.

FREE, FREE PALESTINE.

 

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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.

About 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.