Photo: Wenn
“I can’t believe this. This is my home city. This is one that I’ve been waiting for.” Stormzy’s beaming smile was infectious throughout his sold out show at Camden’s KOKO last night, the penultimate date on his Live In The Flesh Tour. The city came out in droves to show him love, with a mass of fans spitting back every word at the rapidly rising grime MC as he performed the majority of his set with a full band.
With a year that’s seen him catapult into the ears of millions and solidify his place in the heavyweight grime books, here’s a few things we learned from Stormzy last night at a roaring show that featured endless bars, a couple of backflips and a truly electric atmosphere.
Stormzy values manners as much as he does bars
Before playing a more mellow, romantic track for all the screaming females in attendance, Stormzy addressed the “mandem” in the crowd and asked their permission to take a brief detour from “grime time.” “Yo, Mandem. Can I just speak to the ladies for a minute, please?” After a dull response, he brilliantly labelled the guys “cock-blocks.”
You didn’t need to be downstairs to go absolutely ape-shit
Koko is a beautiful venue with four floors, with swells of fans leaning over the balconies for a peek at Stormzy and his extensive entourage. Needless to say, it was going offfffffff on every single floor, with limbs flying in every conceivable direction in gloriously over the top fashion.
A live band makes all the difference
When it’s done right, a live band adds a rich and epic layer to rap proceedings. The drummer was on point, even with more erratic beats that sent fans into a whirling, grime fueled frenzy near the front of the crowd. Stormzy’s stage presence is undeniable: Stormzy controlled the stage with ease last night, bouncing around like a happy toddler in more upbeat moments and rapping with ferocious intensity on harder tracks. The man also has some seriously top shelf dance moves.
Uncle Mez is a hyper active teenager
Stormzy did right by his people and brought out the 18 year old North London MC for his moment to shine at the sold out venue. We assumed the kid would spit his strongest 16 and stroll of the stage victorious. But what actually preceded was a bizarre and chaotic couple of minutes where the teenager jumped around like a kid with a sugar overload, chanting at a “moshpit gang” that didn’t actually appear to exist. I’m not sure he actually rapped a single word.
Stormzy’s DJ likes to abruptly stop songs for no apparent reason
Throughout the night, just when a track was bursting to life, the DJ would bring things to a screeching halt and run the track back, with a mass “whooooooa” of confusion echoing throughout the packed room. The pantomime element of the show was actually pretty ace.
Everybody still loves Lethal Bizzle
When the DJ started spinning Stormzy and Bizzle’s recent collab, ‘Dude’, Bizzle was unfortunately nowhere to be seem. As stormzy started spitting, the track cut short. “Nah, we can do this better,” he mused. Bizzle burst from the shadows and preceded to tear the place apart, everybody chanting the infectious chorus back at the two Mc’s. “That’s an OG, right there,” Stormzy explained as Bizzle took his bow and disappeared to the side.
The one piece tracksuit look is timeless
Stormzy’s clearly got a solid sponsorship deal from Adidas, and that grey one piece tracksuit he was rocking last night was pretty great, his outfit harking back to the good ol’ rap days of Run DMC.
Grime is for all ages
The venue was 14+, so you’d see the odd youth bowling around with his mini posse. On arriving to the venue, I quickly made my way to the toilet to take a leak, bumping into a kid who looked about 12 and was swaying around like a homeless drunk, his eyes rolled to the back of his head. I’m only 23, but I hilariously fell into parental mode. “What have you taken? Where are your parents?” Thankfully, he perked up a little and managed to make it back to his group in one piece for some “grime time.”
Anyway, I'll SHUT UP.
