Review: Pete Rock (@PeteRock) & High Focus (@HighFocusUK ‏) Live @ElectricBrixton

Fri­day night Septem­ber 8^th marked one of the evening’s cel­eb­rat­ing South London’s bass cul­ture with South­bound. In the Brix ! (Brix­ton), Hip Hop heads slid through the dan­cing streets to see one of the greatest names in Hip Hop (Pete rock) and one of the biggest move­ments in UK Hip Hop (High Focus Records) at the Elec­tric. This was made for abso­lute history.

On arrival, there was an unfor­tu­nate acci­dent out­side which caused dis­tress amongst the fans. How­ever, the hero­ism and effi­ciency from the Elec­tric Brixton’s staff was inspir­ing. With all the safety and vul­ner­ab­il­ity con­cerns UK show­cases have had this year, it was refresh­ing to see such care and vigil­ance in such pan­ic as people entered the venue.

Being one of the first people inside, I’m always keen to see how cer­tain DJs open the show to pro­voke high spir­its on a night out before per­formers come on. Raji Rags from NTS Radio, did not dis­ap­point to trans­ition the queue that stretched from the build­ing on to the dance floor. Drinks were pour­ing and heads were knock­ing to con­tem­por­ary Hip Hop mixed with some Old School to set the table for a Pete Rock evening.

The first per­son to touch the Mic was Jam Bax­ter of High Focus records. The music from High Focus records is con­stantly play­ing on my radio show (Big Bang Show Reprezent radio 107.3 FM) It’s a prom­in­ent force in the UK which holds fun­da­ment­al val­ues of Hip Hop. The label has pro­gressed to a point where it tours huge ven­ues and dis­trib­utes music all around the world. There was genu­ine excite­ment for his per­form­ance as people looked for­ward to recit­ing his recently dropped album Man­sion 38. He abso­lutely cap­tiv­ated the audi­ence and as a huge fan of UK Hip Hop, it was a pleas­ure to see how far we have come and the pos­sib­il­it­ies that lie ahead.  Catch­ing up with him back stage I asked him what it was like to work with Pete rock in the same ven­ue to which he responded,

“When your her­oes become your peers it’s a beau­ti­ful feel­ing I feel blessed every single day in my entire life that I’m in this position”

He explained how there so much inspir­a­tion he gets drawn from this city and wheth­er he is tour­ing Bul­garia or work­ing on his album with Chemo in Bangkok, Brix­ton holds a spe­cial place in his heart.

The night was still young in the Elec­tric Brix­ton and three of the Four Owls finally took high flight on stage as the second act of the even­ing. I’m talk­ing of course of Leaf Dogg, BVA and Verb T. I can hon­estly say this was the one that stole the show. It’s noth­ing like see­ing 3 of your home grown snatch the night with ample barz on dizzy soul­ful Hip Hop beats. It hon­estly felt like this was the main attrac­tion.  Joker starr and Mic­all Parkn­sun briefly touched the stage and abso­lutely killed it. There was a close 7‑year rela­tion­ship already estab­lished with the crowd and the per­formers before the night had even star­ted. Die hard fans recog­nised and rapped to every single track from Leaf Dogg’s new Album Dys­lex­ic Dis­ciple to the clas­sic Four Owl Album Nature’s Greatest Mystery.

Reach­ing the early hours of the morn­ing I man­oeuvred my way back­stage to accom­plish a few words with the high focus records bunch who were wicked to hang out with. Eager to see the East Coast Vet, I made my way to the stage to hang back and watch the mas­ter at work. I per­son­ally enjoy watch­ing exper­i­ment­al Hip Hop like Robert Glasper and Madlib per­formed which con­veys sur­real samples and solos with live instru­ment­a­tion but on a Fri­day night in Brix­ton, off the tail of sum­mer, Pete Rock came to close the even­ing as a DJ and move the crowd with some classics.

His per­form­ances always hold an ingredi­ent of nos­tal­gia and being part of the Hip Hop Back in The Day Crew, I couldn’t help but elec­tric slide on the stage (behind Pete Rock of course) and join in with the cap­tiv­at­ing head nod­ding gen­er­ated by Pete rock on the turntables.

East coast Hip Hop has pulsated through the hearts of our Lon­don streets in the last couple of months with per­form­ances from Jeru da Dam­aja, Cor­mega, Kool G Rap, all with a seg­ment pay­ing trib­ute to one of the greatest that ever did it Prodigy. Tonight was no dif­fer­ent as the turn­tab­list played a col­lec­tion of Mobb Deep records. The view from stage was enough to know Hip Hop is forever. To have thou­sands of people doing back­flips to your music from bey­ond the grave is time­less. Gain­ing the per­spect­ive from stage, watch­ing Pete Rock con­duct an audi­ence from that view, tapped into the psy­cho­logy on a back and forth rela­tion­ship rid­ing a col­lec­tion of vibes to lift a crowd. He closed with some CL Smooth and Pete Rock as a teas­er for the up and com­ing gig in Octo­ber. 4 am in the morn­ing you would have thought exhaus­tion would kick in but I was per­son­ally euphor­ic and re-energised.

Headed back­stage I met the legend that is Pete Rock, shook his hand and left him to reset for his on going work as a vet­er­an in the game. The night fin­ished in Mcdon­alds with people bump­ing Pete rock from their phones and obvi­ously put­ting back on all the cal­or­ies they burnt mosh­ing to a glor­i­ous night of Hip Hop.

In clos­ing, I would love to see a per­form­ance with Pete Rock where he brings those jazzy soul­ful samples to light with key­boards, horns and drums. I think orches­trat­ing with live instru­ments dis­play­ing such a quint­es­sen­tial vibe in Hip Hop he cap­tured in the early 90s, would be monu­ment­al. As far as High Focus Records goes, UK Hip Hop is in good hands. Look­ing for­ward to review­ing the next one.

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SIRE

Emcee, Radio Host, Journ­al­ist and Hip Hop junkie unwill­ing to go to rehab! Lon­don is my home and if there is a live per­form­ance cham­pi­on­ing the Hip Hop cul­ture, you’ll hear from me on what I think and you’ll prob­ably catch me there doing back­flips amongst Boom Bap sounds. Fol­low me on @reignofsire.

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