I just saw the advert for Cutting Edge. Have you seen that? With the 'Guns Of Brixton' sample going through it? Great minds think alike I guess. We actually had the sample on 'Guns Of Brixton' rejected by my boy Paul Simonen a month or so back. It was a big blow to us because we'd been planning on releasing the song for like two years, we felt like we were about to get it out there at a time when Britain really needed it, but I guess it wasn't to be. I know Arcade Fire are touring an amazing version of the song at the moment and I'm told there is a great version by The Good The Bad and The Queen too. I am trying to get it released as a bootleg at the moment, we're sorting out what the next single is going to be and we're going to do some more work on the album first, but I definitely want the people to have it. I think it's what The Clash would have done. The issue isn't dead, South London's problem with gun crime hasn't gone away, I won't stop talking about it and learning about it. It was never just about the song.
That aside! I just had two of the greatest days of my career as a rapper. Camden Crawl is London's premiere street festival; it used to be a one day event in all of the main venues in Camden – there are A LOT – this year it was a two day festival with the bulk of the bands playing both days, with a few only doing one or the other, Amy Winehouse, The Clarlatans, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Roll Deep, Travis, some amazing secret headliners. I was booked to do both days which I have been seriously excited about since I got the message a couple of months back. I had heard rumours of who I'd be playing with and which venues I'd be playing in but I didn't know 100%. Thursday I was booked for The Purple Turtle which was the Artrocker venue over the two days, after Bricolage and Tiger Force, before Blood Red Shoes and Operator Please. I don't know much about Tiger Force but they were going hard from what I saw, I missed Bricolage but I like what I've heard and I missed Blood Red Shoes who are flipping great! Operator Please I don't know a lick about, I hear they're a good band but that never really means much to me. I'll have to check them out on MySpace or something.
We rehearsed for about nine hours all in all for the two days; we really didn't want to give ourselves any excuses for not making the most of such an amazing festival opportunity. So going into the first day gig at The Purple Turtle I would say I was quietly confident, we checked in at about 4PM and moved pretty swiftly up to The Hawley Arms pub down by Camden Lock which was the hospitality venue for artists and promoters and stuff. There was a great pianist in there playing TV themes and pop classics, which was genius! Why do people have DJs these days? If I was organising a party today I would definitely hire a pianist. We shared some burgers, some Red Stripes and some lasagnes in a cup, singing along with the pianist when we knew the words. My boys Akala and the Illastate fam came through, we were going to go and see some of Akala's set at Underworld before we went on that evening. After a bit of venue jumping, a lot of standing out in the sun and McDonalds milkshake it was time to check out Akala's set at Underworld, he was debuting some of the new album, I only got to see two songs in the set before I had to get back to The Purple Turtle but what I heard was serious stuff! I'm looking forward to that album a lot.
I don't know what I could possibly tell you about the performance itself. I had an amazing time. The show seemed to sound, move and feel perfect. The first full song in the set was a new song called 'Superhero' which you will only know if you came to ULU last month or The Fly in February… watch the video below.
I had to break the news that 'Guns Of Brixton' wouldn't be getting the official release we were hoping for, we shouted out Paul Simenon as much as we could, we even had the audience sing his name on the outro in some sort of positive mantra... watch the video below.
The last song in the set was my remix of 'Boom (Smash Stuff), we got into that and either Jack or Tego knocked the mixer off the table and everything stopped, we thought we were going to have to go accapella but we were saved and the relief made for a seriously energetic performance… watch the video below.
We had to be in soundcheck the next afternoon at 1PM. So we went back to Brixton to recharge rather than stay in Camden and exhaust ourselves any more than necessary. Friday evening we were playing Koko, the main venue in Camden, with Hot Club De Paris and The Charlatans among others. We knew we had to be on our game for that show. Hot Club De Paris are from Liverpool and are easily one of my top 3 favourite bands in the world right now, I first heard them in Manchester on the radio while I was on tour with Akala, I ended up seeing them and meeting them at Nastyfest the next month and I was excited to see them again, they didn't disappoint. They are an amazing band. We spent the majority of the day in The Hawley Arms again, spoke to my boy James from Hadouken who was having a good Crawl, I met Chris from Errorplains – long hair Chris, there are two -, I spoke to my boy Pro Green who I wanted to see but he was on at the same time as me, I chilled with my peoples Cajun Dance Party who I did some secret recording with last year for the GoodBooks album. Many hours, food in cups, glasses of orange juice and name drops later we headed back to Koko to see what was going on. I had a photoshoot with Becki, who was great, I put on my cape and acted like a superhero, I ran around phone booths and such, we ran into Example who was doing a photoshoot with The Mitchell Brothers, Pro Green and Mike Skinner for a tour they're organising, Ex wished me luck with the Charlatans fans, I wished him luck with the Travis fans. We entered Koko, saw Hot Club De Paris who, I don't know if I mentioned this yet; were amazing. Our camera man/ director/ editor Mr Chan was going to be late so unfortunately there is no video footage of what turned out to be another amazing gig, we lost our voices a lot in the set, we bought Pixel out to 'Boom' with us and got another great reception from a really up for it crowd. After the gig we spent about two hours discussing 80s culture – cartoons, tv shows, music etc.- with Errorplains, which we did manage to film and will DEFINITELY be putting on Youtube when it's ready. We went out and about through Camden to see what was going on, we went to the official after party at World's End but we felt a bit out of place, we said hello and goodbye to some peoples and headed back to Brixton for a Why Lout? after party!
I was told that I was the 23rd most viewed musician on Youtube yesterday. Which is pretty great. Check my channel and subscribe for updates.
I am tired and need to rest.
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