Dizzee Rascal - London Koko - 14/6/07
4/5
By: Thomas Hannan
Even though Dizzee Rascal's new LP seems thoroughly preoccupied with the existence of the "world outside of the manor" in to which his music was born, a theme presented in a manner that admirably sees him try to enlighten the grime scene to the existence of other ways of going about both life and music (to the extent that 'Maths and English' barely qualifies as a grime record whatsoever), this headline set at London's Koko (where the beer is always lukewarm in temperature and ludicrous in price, and the sound consistently awful) as part of his Dirtee Stank tour - the label he's set up as a platform for up and coming urban artists - is about as straight up a hip hop set as you could ask for.
Yes, tonight's performance is so straight down the line that you can almost tick off the clichés - the appearance of a guest MC to emphasise rhymes but not steal the show, the occasional dropping of the odd skit or novelty track by the DJ who stays in the shadows at the back (there's never any doubt as to whose show this is), the way Dizzee takes off his top for no reason other than to show off quite how muscley a little rapper he is... the list goes on, yet somehow it doesn't feel like going through the motions. It feels like a show that's always raring to get on to the next part, Dizzee running through all the big hits ('Jus' A Rascal' and 'I Luv U' are confidently jettisoned very early on, to rapturous reactions) with evident glee.
Presumably a lot of that joy on his face comes from the fact that he's playing to a home town crowd. An east London boy he may be (and, sometimes rather boringly, he doesn't let you forget it), but north London wasn't far for him to travel either physically or musically. He revels particularly in dropping tracks that wouldn't have gone down particularly well elsewhere, what with the rest of the UK seemingly regarding London in the same way that the rest of the world regards the USA - with utter contempt, sometimes justifiably.
His best moments come when he manages to appeal to fans old and new simultaneously, thereby brushing aside all concerns as to the wide reaching relevance of this style of music. Take the current album's first single 'Sirens' for example - it documents a run away from the police in a tongue that those who are actually involved in such shenanigans will feel like is speaking directly to them, but is so eloquent and delivered with such a fervour that even boringly well behaved types like myself can enjoy at as one of the best pieces of escapist music we've seen performed all year.
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