Tuesday 14th March.
SXSW (South By South West) is a yearly gig crawl/festival covering the landscape of Austin, Texas, showcasing some of the finest emerging talent making a stamp on the music industry. So when we saw that London promoters Musicalize were curating a stage—with a line-up of supreme UK talent—we simply couldn't resist. And a whole bunch of fans, British and American, couldn't either (former Hot 97 host, Cipha Sounds, and Danny Brown were getting down to the sound of Ghetts).
Kano & Friends kicked off at The Main II, off of East 6th Street, with a straight fire set from Rude Kid. The intimate space filled quickly as the open doors allowed Rude's mix of Stormzy's "Big For Your Boots" and Sir Spyro's "Topper Top" to blast through to the chaotic main road. As soon as he dropped a grime refix of Migos' "Bad and Boujee", ravers threw up their hands in complete grime submission.
Boy Better Know's Frisco put on a great performance too, with the support of DJ Maximum, gripping the open-minded audience through his broad range of work. At one point, the crowd was so overwhelmed with excitement when he dropped "Walking With Elephants" and then went into a freestyle set, before bringing out Birmingham spitter Saf One. Following that, Logan Sama took the growing crowd through the history of grime music and highlighted pivotal moments on the mic. A swift mix in of Skepta's "That's Not Me", and it's no surprise the audience burst out into skanks worthy of Eskimo Dance.
Tuesday 14th March.
SXSW (South By South West) is a yearly gig crawl/festival covering the landscape of Austin, Texas, showcasing some of the finest emerging talent making a stamp on the music industry. So when we saw that London promoters Musicalize were curating a stage—with a line-up of supreme UK talent—we simply couldn't resist. And a whole bunch of fans, British and American, couldn't either (former Hot 97 host, Cipha Sounds, and Danny Brown were getting down to the sound of Ghetts).
Kano & Friends kicked off at The Main II, off of East 6th Street, with a straight fire set from Rude Kid. The intimate space filled quickly as the open doors allowed Rude's mix of Stormzy's "Big For Your Boots" and Sir Spyro's "Topper Top" to blast through to the chaotic main road. As soon as he dropped a grime refix of Migos' "Bad and Boujee", ravers threw up their hands in complete grime submission.
Boy Better Know's Frisco put on a great performance too, with the support of DJ Maximum, gripping the open-minded audience through his broad range of work. At one point, the crowd was so overwhelmed with excitement when he dropped "Walking With Elephants" and then went into a freestyle set, before bringing out Birmingham spitter Saf One. Following that, Logan Sama took the growing crowd through the history of grime music and highlighted pivotal moments on the mic. A swift mix in of Skepta's "That's Not Me", and it's no surprise the audience burst out into skanks worthy of Eskimo Dance.
Ghetts came out with all guns blazing and took the energy in the room to a next level. Rude Kid took it way back, as his DJ, and dropped their first collaboration "Sing For Me". But it was their newest track together, "Banger After Banger", that had everyone losing themselves. "I was thinking: 'I've just got to do me," Ghetts told Complex after his set. "I want the world to know who I am, what I do, and the uniqueness in what I do. It could have gone either way, but it went the right way; it was a beautiful moment, to be fair."
Little Simz came in and literally blew the speakers, and left the crowd hypnotised (a couple near the stage got fully lost in the moment with the smoothness of her delivery on "Bad To The Bone"). Then Kano got ready to slaughter his first SXSW in a way that only he could. He opened his set with "New Banger" and, as you can imagine, the crowd went wild—everyone dripping in buckets of sweat. Kano then revisited his 2005 single, the classic we all know to be "Ps & Qs"; the room went silent in anticipation, for the moment they could all shout "POP! POP! POP! Then we're out!" It's impossible to break down every highlight, but trust us when we say he knows how to work a stage.
JumanJi, a grime MC from Miami, shared his thoughts on the event on Tuesday night: "This was a nasty, nasty line-up. The type of line-up that everyone wishes you could get here in America, but you never really get to see. You see flyers from Rinse FM parties and Birmingham parties that are the most stacked line-ups, but we don't get those kind of line-ups here. So, for me, it's a real privilege to be here and to witness this."
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