140 Grime Street - Music History?

So there I am on my way to my meeting with Mr. Harrison and the familiar Hustler song blares out of the Blackberry (or rather in my case Crackberry). "Rina, you reaching Kano...?"
Hmmmm with all the dramas in my world over the previous four weeks I had totally forgotten about Kano's Album Launch and hadn't received any tickets (I'll take that up with Rwd Mag later) or questioned where mine where.

Now I'm never really one to blag a freeness (yeh right) or tickets (lol) but I made a few phonecalls and my suspicions were confirmed, this was gonna be harder than I'd anticipated to attend one of the most talked about events in the music industry.

Just a few bars short of giving up hope a lifeline was thrown to me via Mr.Harrison by Twin 'Alex' B. So here we have it..I'm off to watch Kano, Wiley, Skepta, Ghetto & Tinchy Stryder all grace the same stage at The IndigO2 and in my opionion make music history.

Arriving at The O2, you could tell that the event by Rwd and Addidas was going to be big, I kept it real hood (Credit Crunch and all) in jeans and pumps and most of you know I can't leave the house if the levels ain't right, but on this occasion I was outdone by far by revellers in their boxfresh Addidas trainers and could tell certain peeps had been popping tags prior to leaving the house.

I gotta shout out my boy, Kiss 100's Manny Norte and his sidekick for the night Shortee Blitz, who laid down some SERIOUS tunes inside the arena alongside Logan. I felt like I was 15 again at a Ben & Jerry's all dayer. Old School Garage mixed with Hip Hop, Grime, RnB it couldn't get any better...or so I thought.

By the time me and Harrison got our bearings and sat down upstairs (not sure if it was VIP or not??!!!) The Thirst were half way threw their performance. I've never actually seen these guys perform or heard their material but based on their lyrical content and performance on the night, they've just earned themselves a new fan.

Next on stage was the Peridot Dancers and although some of them looked quite young I would be more than happy than to be labelled a cradle snatcher(No paedo!) as the dance moves they were laying down on the stage was nothing short of COLD. They went at it hard and it they performed so effortlessly it was like they could do it in their sleep.

At this point everyone was on a high and the energy in the arena was flowing and what happened next had me asking Harrison 'Why? Nah seriously bruv Why?' Next on stage as Manny put it was the East London's version of Lil Kim and Foxy Brown. Personally I think they were on something as they literally were some any random chicks that thought they could MC and we should've guessed they couldn't when the Lil Kim looking one dressed in heels and a t-shirt, streched to make a dress came tottering on stage. Netherless the Foxy Brown looking one laid down shall we say some bars which made me think if this is MC'ing I'm Beyonce. After Shortee grabbed the mic and kicked them offstage there were a couple more wannabe MC's who were clearly were not from South London as they would never embaress me like that. Netherless it was the funniest sh!t i'd seen that night and I'm still laughing from the flashbacks.

Just as I was regaining composure from the MC'ing Tinchy burst on stage with his hype man Fuda Guy and had everyone singing the lyrics to Stryderman. Showing what swagger really is, Tinchy was dressed in a Star in the Hood t-shirt and had the girls screaming for a free Tee. He hyped the crowd so much I was tempted to do a back flip off the balcony onto the stage just to get a free one.

As the lights dimmed and the lights flashed (good thing I wasn't epileptic) we knew the East Londoner was about to take centre stage. Kano took the stage and made every second worth watching as he performed tracks of his album 140 Grime Street. As I heard the intro to 'Hunting We Will Go' I knew Ghetts was gonna jump on stage at any point. In true Ghetts style, the bars were on point and the performance was energetic and at one point made me a bit dizzy, I couldn't keep up!
After Ghetto left the stage, up next was Skepta. Skepta went at it hard with Kano with the track 'These MC's', again the two artists tore up the stage, although I couldn't help not really listening to the track as Skepta was dressed in a dressing gown and socks and I was too busy wondering what he had on underneath!

I couldn't even catch my breath before Wiley joined Kano on stage and they performed 'Anywhere We Go'. He then peformed some of his earlier tracks such as 'This is the girl', and had the ladies screaming and certain man cosying up to the girls, hoping to get digits after.

The concert ended with Wiley, Ghetto, & Skepta all joining Kano on stage and each performing one of their own tracks. The highlight for me was watching over the balcony as Ghetto lunged himself into the crowd while performing 'Sing For Me', any rockstar behaviour!

There was a lot of grime artists all under one roof whether watching or performing as I spied my girl Ny, looking fresh to death as ever & Chipmunk and Wretch 32 from Alwayz Recording.

The night was a success and hopefully in the future we can have more events like this.