On Friday 29th March, Annie Mac brought through Big Zuu, Jelani Blackman and Eyez, for a wavey grime and hip-hop exhibition in the intimate and trendy venue of The Old Blue Last in Dalston. Sandwiched between some gully grime sets for the one of the scene’s veteran DJ’s, DJ Jampak, each artist would kill their respective set before a bonus grime set saw things off at the end.
However, throwing it back to the beginning of the event, the first act to bless the stage after Jampak’s opening set was Derby’s extremely talented and super bless guy Eyez who is one of the most talented lyricists in the contemporary crop of grime MCs. With his immense energy Eyez set things off with a bang, shelling down the stage with renditions of “Innit” , “Top Boy” and a plethora of other bangers.
After another Jampak set, Jelani Blackman came through to bless the stage with his versatile offering of hip-hop which at times was both mellow and as energy driven as Eyez’s grime set.
Three tracks in Jealni would also buss out a wavey saxophone solo. He performed the tracks “Follow”, “Lock Jaw”, “Submarine” as well as many others. This performance was much more of a sonic journey, with the crowd at mostly swaying calmly to the music, broken up with spontaneous outbreaks of turnt up moshing as things went up a notch. Jelani finished with a rendition of “Nobody’s Son” culminating in a stage dive!
The last act to touch the stage was Radio DJ, MC extraordinaire, west London’s Big Zuu. He started things off with a rendition of “B.I.G”, a debut performance of his brand-new track “Say No” and then proceeded to shell down further with renditions of the Tre Mission-produced tracks “Blatant truth” and “Manual”, the stonking Sir Spyro produced “Builders” and finally seeing his performance off with the “Fall Off”-produced by 169. Zuu’s melodic vocal choruses push the boundaries of contemporary grime music, and show that the MC has more to his musical prowess than just fire bars.
Before things were wrapped up, the audience were treated to a gully freestyle session where Eyez returned to the stage with two of his Derby mandem Dubzy and Man Like H to accompany Zuu as they shelled down over some naughty Jampak selection which featured a number of hard reloads.
To conclude, it was a sick energy filled evening which allowed fans to witness three incredibly talented artists up close, a great night of urban live music in a swanky part of London.