If like me, you happen to like your beats phat and your rhymes dope, then the inner-westside of Sydney was the place to be last week. I arrived at the Enmore on Saturday night still on a (mostly) hip hop high, as it had only been 48 short hours since the Wu Tang Clan had turned the same venues stage to splinters. If that wasn’t enough to keep the heads happy, tonight 4 more of the biggest names in the business, Q-Bert, Supernatural, Chali 2na and Nas were here to keep ‘em noddin’.

Neither Q-Bert or Supernatural are strangers to our shores, both of these legends have treated us to some spectacular displays in recent memory. Supernatural doing his 3 Emcees routine is always a highlight, and Q-Bert with more scratches than a head lice infested year five class is always mind blowing, enough to make you think “But it looks so easy? My decks must be broken”. This time though their set had been billed as a Man (Supernatural) Vs machine (Q-Bert) battle set. I was really looking forward to seeing something a little different from these guys, and what we got…was the same aforementioned set. Q-Bert killed it for half the hour, and then was joined onstage by Supernatural who went through his usual routine to close it out. As always they were both amazing doing what they do best, however it would have been nice to see a little switch up in the plan. Then again there is always that saying “Why change a winning formula?”...and it has a good point.

Next up was ex Jurassic 5 emcee Chali 2na. I was lucky enough to interview Chali before he headed out here for this tour and he promised us that the show was going to be “really really tight”. The larger than life emcee wasn’t lying, as a band they have their set down note-perfect from start to finish! Even to the point of some tongue in cheek choreographed dance moves, which were just another reason the crowd kept smiling through his entire set. Chali had also promised us some J5 classics in the set he was bringing out and delivered on that as well, playing Freedom and a reworked version of Quality Control that included a verse of Michael Jackson’s One More Chance sung expertly by Chali’s keys player. This song ended to what was one of the loudest and longest sets of extended applause I have ever heard, you know the kind that just when it seems to be stopping starts back up bigger and louder than before. Even after having seen J5 play here three times, I have never seen them get applause like that, and the look on Chali’s face was priceless…J1? Chali wrapped it up with Lock Shit Down off his latest record before leaving the stage.

Nas was finally headlining a show in Sydney! And this time you could listen to his whole set, safe in the knowledge that you weren’t going to accidentally catch a few bars of Kanye and his auto-tuned ego as you sprint for the doors when Nas steps off stage. Mr Jones opened with a statement he dropped on us a few years ago, Hip Hop is Dead, by the end of this set he will have proved this statement wrong. Backed by a 7 piece band, Nas also gave us Breathe from his “_untitled_” album and the classic I know I can early in the set. “Represent, Represent” the crowd was in good voice as Nas then delved into a medley of tracks from his signature LP Illmatic. Generally not one of my favourite Nas cuts, If I ruled the world was almost the song of the night for mine…almost. But In the encore Nas and his band gave us an absolutely bangin’ version of One Mic that stole the entire show.

Far from being dead, Hip Hop is alive and kicking in Sydney town at the moment. And the best part is the current onslaught isn’t about to let up, there are still big names to come before the end of the year so get out and give these guys a reason to keep making the long flight.