MY TOP 5 HIP-HOP GIGS OF 2017 | BY FAIZAH CYANIDE

By Faizah Cyanide • On Reviews

2017 has been a year full of great live music events, here is my per­son­al top 5 of ones I experienced!

5. Re:imagine: Wu Tang Revis­ited – 20 Years On at XOYO  had every throw­ing up their ‘W’s’, enjoyed this ven­ue very much the lasers and lights were on point and there was a lot of crowd inter­ac­tion, a couple of fans even got to spit some verses them­selves. Live band brought a whole new level of sound, from viol­ins to drums but my favor­ite was the bongos!

LH

4. The Mise­du­ca­tion Anniversary: A Live Rendi­tion cel­eb­rated a sold out rendi­tion of Lauryn Hill’s album ‘the Mise­du­ca­tion of Lauryn Hill’ at the Jazz Café. Anoth­er intim­ate ven­ue, every­one was singing along, the live band was incred­ible as were the vocals! The atmo­sphere was elec­tric as young Jazz musi­cians paid trib­ute to the clas­sic album.

3. Phar­oahe Monch – my first time see­ing him live and I def­in­itely felt the pres­ence of a very wise man, it made me go back through his dis­co­graphy. ‘Simon Says’ had every­one in a frenzy it was hype!! He came with a bit of a the­at­ric­al per­form­ance, sim­u­lat­ing shoot­ing him­self in the head, provid­ing visu­al imagery to high­light he issue of gun viol­ence. All in all this was a very power­ful per­form­ance and a very enjoy­able one.

NAS

2. Nas live at the 02 Academy in Leeds — he dropped a few snip­pets of tracks he nev­er per­forms like, ‘I Want to Talk to You’ and in today’s volat­ile polit­ic­al cli­mate it was enough to get true fans down the front super hyped, we wanted more. There was a very heart­felt trib­ute to Prodigy who passed away this year. As usu­al for Nas shows the crowd was very diverse, I met a lot of cool people and we remin­isced on the days when hip hop was very different.

1. Cor­mega Live at Chip Shop — My favor­ite event of the year has to be the book sign­ing and per­form­ance by Cor­mega  from QB New York. There is noth­ing quite like being sur­roun­ded by real fans of an artist while he’s going hard at it and you can’t get more intim­ate than Brixton’s Hip Hop Chip Shop, what feels like the home of Hip Hop in Lon­don to me. High­light of the night was hear­ing Mega’s per­from his verse from, ‘Killaz Theme’.

Look­ing for­ward to what 2018 has in offer!

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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.