Big Day Out sideshows? Bring it. Last Thursday the king of the UK grime scene Dizzee Rascal hit Sydney to show off his wears and get us all skanking, and I sure was down for a bit of Dizzee action. I walked in to find Macromatics on the stage and decided, wisely I think, to go for a breath of fresh ears. I walked back in to find DJ M.A.F.I.A. ripping up the stage with some old school jump up drum n’ bass before turning on the hip hop, a bittersweet symphony meddling in to Dead Prez and the like. I look around, in the midst of a cold sweat, and look at all these handsome fellas and pretty girls and only one question comes in to my mind – do all these people know how to skank? Has skanking even made it to Australia?
It’s rare that hip hop give gives you access to such a pertinent, essential sociological question so you can understand my excitement as the DJ gets booted off the stage, all the equipment gets shifted stage left and on comes DD Semtex to get the crowd worked up.
“Who’s from London?”
“Who’s from England?”
“Who’s from Australiaaaaaaaa?”
In that order the screams peeled out and on came the music, anything the crowd could scream back. MOP got cold as ice, there was jumping around, no one forgot about Dre, yes Big Pun is gonna do the dude whilst he’s slurping spaghetti. All the while Dizzee is being dangled in front of us. He’s coming soon, just like an upcoming movie; five minutes, just five minutes, five minutes that turn of course in to twenty. And then he takes the stage with an accomplice to do the double ups with and who’s name remained ever, and perhaps deliberately, obscure.
He’s not a big man but he does fill the stage with his charisma and seething fury cracking out favourites from all three albums (a surprise in a way, I was expecting nothing from Maths & English). A fine MC, and from a jungle start, his rapping was superb, raw and measured, with every syllable separated from every other. It comes across as angry and this did seem to have a bit of an effect on the crowd (two fights almost broke out in front of me, although both petered out when the participants realised that taking it outside would mean missing the show), but along with the anger is the energy and that got everyone jumping.
The front at the stage was a mosh pit, with people jumping around madly, singing along at the appropriate moments. It was no place for ladies but there they were, and no, nobody was skanking. And if they were then they were skanking on the inside, which frankly I don’t think counts. Jus’ a Rascal and Excuse Me were the two highlights for me, and I was glad he didn’t trot out that awful tune with Lily Allen. All very grimy and we also got a small drum n ‘bass interlude with Helicopter Tune and Original Nutter giving Dizzee a chance to break out his jungle MC skills, although I was less impressed with the Artic Monkeys/White Stripes bit. I came for hip hop after all.
By the time the encore came in the form of Fix up, Look Sharp, both stage men were topless so I thought I’d join in, revealing my tanned Mediterranean physique to the throng and going in for one last jump around.
Entertaining, nice visuals, engaging, skilful, too brief; all praise to the rascal.
TheDon says...
Anyone got the word on what his BDO set was like?
adamwitt says...
Dizzie at BDO was EPIC.
adamwitt says...
Dizzie at BDO was EPIC.