REVIEW | SADAT X (@SADATX) & EL DA SENSEI (@ELDASENSEI) LIVE AT CHIP SHOP BRIXTON (@ChipShopBXTN)

EL DA SENSEII pull up to the Chip Shop with all the energy of pure hip hop res­on­at­ing from out­side. The attend­ance for the ven­ue is set to Ram Jam full. The soundtrack of the night is set to pure 90’s and early 2000 pres­sure. Out comes my Guy, “Stinkin Slum­rok” for a breath­er and gives me a warm wel­come. I ask him how he’s feel­ing and whats his energy is say­ing. He tells me he’s not sure about cer­tain tracks and how people will accept it as the crowd was an older crowd. So he needs to set his mode to ‘I don’t give a F**k’ and gives me the pure energy laugh. 

When you enter the Chip Shop you get the pure Hip Hop Atmo­sphere with the won­der­ful por­traits on the wall from past legends who’s blessed the chip shop. The place is also filled with legends from TY to Skinny­man. Behind the cur­tain is the men of the hour, Sad­at X & El Da Sensei. 

I’m jam­ming to pure bangers from Track­side Burn­ers and place myself front­line and centre ready for show time, to watch the mad­ness com­mence. Let the live show start. The host with the most, ‘Curoc from the legendary ‘Son of Noise’ intro­duces the first act. First to the 4 by 4 stage area is one of ‘Blah’s’ front­line sol­diers, the ever grimy Stinkin Slum­rok. Armed with a rum and coke he stands front and centre and starts to deliv­er pure Unf**ckwithable hip hop gold. With his ‘ I don’t give a f**k men­tal­ity and his Red­manesq type deliv­ery, he begins to shut the place down. Hip Hop was defi­antly in the build­ing as the crowd was fully amped. Drop­ping hot pieces of fire like Mad­ness and Power Moves, he fully shelled down the dance and set the per­fect atmo­sphere to get the night started. 

With the crowd fully amped up and enjoy­ing the fest­iv­it­ies, Curoc announces a ran­dom act. The bar is filled with con­ver­sa­tions in every corner, and the acts get a decent wel­come. The first guy steps up. Yo, My Names Blain Cof­fee! He explains they’re gonna do 2 tracks and looks at the dj to tell him for­get the beat. Pass the Mic to his friend and starts shelling an acapella. Brave move for an unknown to throw the mic and do an acapella. The pas­sion and pro­jec­tion he delivered brought the whole place to a pin drop silence. Every per­son fully in tuned to Blain Cof­fee telling his truth’s with a sweet dose of con­scious­ness. The applause was real, the energy was felt and the love was giv­en. Major salute to his power move it worked. Then up steps his co‑d Cory Hill fir­ing shells over Jiden­na’s Long Live the Chief. Good intro­duc­tion to Lon­don and def­in­itely done well for the applause they received. As I said hip hop is in the building. 

It’s Main event time and Curoc Intro­duces the Men of the Hour. Make some noise for Sad­at X and El Da Sen­sei. The Place is fully ram-jam, you could barely spin around without start­ing a full wave. That feel­ing you get in the Chip Shop is price­less. Makes you feel like your rap­ping from in the heart of a cypher. SAD

The two legends step for­ward. Sad­at x in a black Brand Nubi­an T- shirt and El Da Sen­sei rock­ing the but­ton up Polo. The first request was every­body take one step back. We pop a small shuffle and these legends go into full on assault mode. The shear cata­logue of fire they had was evid­ent with the crowd being fully inter­act­ive with the exper­i­ence. As they fired hits after hits, like 1999, Crowd Pleasa, Da God, Ain’t Trip­ping, Come On, C’mon With Da Git Down, Punks jump up to get Beat Down.… The energy was pure, the deliv­ery was skill­ful and the pres­ence was that of MC’s. You get many artist that come to these shores and half deliv­er. Def­in­itely was not the case tonight. For the next hour and a half they fully showed the art form and what it takes to be a true MC. Even if you wer­en’t famil­i­ar with their music you would of been a con­ver­ted fan that night. Espe­cially with that mosh pit feel­ing the chip shop provides. You look around and see Slum­rok and Skinny­man dan­cing on the tables fully immersed in pure vibes. My high­light was when El Da Sen­sei split the chip shop in half and had people in spartan type voices shout­ing ‘C’mon with the Come on, Get Down with the Get Down’. It was def­in­itely a per­form­ance to behold. The way they inter­ac­ted through­out the whole set was that of pro­fes­sion­als, With Sad­at X giv­ing dope acapel­las in-between tracks at times. They even treated us to cuts from their new pro­ject, “XL” which unlike most albums in these days were done togeth­er. The tracks were Bangers. I sug­gest people delve deep and invest­ig­ate that piece of work. As the place wound down to a close and people went home. The two artist hung around to take pho­tos and spread love. 

As an artist the per­form­ance was inspir­a­tion­al, as a fan the per­form­ance was full of all the good stuff you expect when you come to see that real Hip Hop. Over­all, massive salute to the Two Legends! Hope We have plenty more to come.

Pho­to­graphy by : Nadia Otshudi

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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.