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With his boss (Mike ‘The Beats’ Skinner) watching on from the upstairs bar, this fuzzy haired Fulham lyricist Example labours a painfully elaborated ‘ghetto’ accent, which certainly sounds ridiculous but has the chavalicious adolescents in the crowd dancing along nonetheless. Example’s repertoire seems to be based around a self-deprecating ‘so what, I’m white, posh and can’t rap’ recognition of his short comings. Unfortunately, this does little to detract from the fact that he is white, posh and can’t rap – “Come on sing along” he pleads “it’s easy, it’s gotta be, I wrote it”. Far too true a statement – cumbersome, forgettable shithop heavily laced with Mike Skinner’s obvious record label input and influence (what ever happened to pushing things forward eh Mike?).
Straight out of the hip hop battle scene, Prof. Green has been a favourite on the London circuit for a few years now. But with the release of single ‘Before I Die’ Prof Green’s intelligent word play and idiosyncratic style has matured beyond the realms of the playground diss, and emerged one of 2007s most promising homegrown talents. The thumping refix of Pharrell’s ‘Can I Have It Like That’ and mix of Dead Prez’d ‘Hip Hop’ get the now rammed venue jumping, as does the aforementioned ‘Before I Die’. These tracks aside, Prof retains the edgy humour that got him recognised throughout the battle scene – there’s time for a quick freestyle all about Lady Sov’s lesbian adventures that has the crowd in stitches, as well as the occasional controversial punch line that’ll get jaws dropping, and parents angry nationwide - “This year I’m here blowing up like backpacks on packed trains” – undeniably cheap and nasty, but tongue in cheek enough to get away with it.
When we got our hands on Ben Drew’s four track sampler back in summer 2005, things looked so goddamn promising. Clearly a chap with something worthwhile to say, Plan B seemed to exist to cause controversy and make people think – nothing new there, we hear you cry. But rarely had someone captured the daily perils, trials and everyday nastiness of inner-city/council estate adolescence so angrily, and at the same time (with the help of his unconventional, totally unhiphop acoustic guitar) so articulately, and so delicately.
So it’s a total disappointment when a hoodied up Plan B storms on stage tonight with a full band as backing. Gone is the novelty and imagination that came with a furiously spat acoustic diatribe about the state of British youth today (‘Kidz’) – instead tonight we are presented with an all singing, all dancing stage show. Flying into a rocked up, pounding version of ‘Where Ya From’, things are raucous and messy, and the kids at the front love it. Plan B incessantly churns out track after track from his album ‘Who Needs Actions When You Got Words’: From the angst ridden Eastenders episode that is ‘Mama’, to the Paul Epworth produced ‘No Good’, Drew has the crowd eating out his hand, and singing along to every word – this undoubtedly makes for a great live atmosphere, but is, at the same time, all too tragic. Lyrics about stabbing people in the eyeball, underage sex, abortion and the likes lose their integrity behind the flashing lights and adoring fans, and become totally removed from their context.
This said, there are brief moments excellence this evening – Plan B does don his might acoustic axe for one track, ‘Dead and Buried’, strumming his way through a disturbing warning about unprotected sex, drug addiction, and murder which gets hairs standing up on necks. A remix of The Mitchell Brother’s ‘Harvey Nicks’, re-titled, ‘Sum One Switched’ traces the murder in London department store in early 2006, a clever, thought provoking twist on the humorous original. Clever, that is, until the venue is drowned in horridly unnecessary screams and other ill-placed sound effects that totally detract from the sentiment of the tune.
In his recent interview with Gigwise, Drew banged on about using his toned down take on hip hop as a launch pad from which he could be noticed, and get his real message heard. It’s a little strange therefore to see the acoustic abandoned for an encore of stereotypical, painfully clichéd hip hop re-workings of others’ tracks such as ‘Song 2’ and Justice Vs Simian’s ‘We are You’re Friends’ (with the help of beatboxer Killa Keller). On one hand, it’s always good fun to hear cheesy hip hop classics such as ‘Jump Around’ reworked by talented lyricists, and this fun filled ten minutes certainly has the crowd bouncing off the walls. On the other hand, it’s bit embarrassing to see a proven, talented social commentator and hip hop lyricist bounding like an idiot, ‘jump[ing] up to get down’. Who needs actions when you got words, eh?
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