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

By • 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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