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My review of Mobb Deep @ The Kentish Town Forum, London 29th July 2004 (Pics)

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On The Edge of Insanity:
Ok, now I was expecting this concert to be pretty hyped, but nothing could have prepared me for how hyped it would actually turn out to be. The evening started off pretty slowly, the DJ playing a lot of the hiphop/reggae collaborations of recent times, which nobody really seemed to be feeling. After about 45 minutes of that DJ though, Paragon stepped onto the stage and announced that there was to be an MC battle taking place. The four contestants walked on stage, a member of the audience picked the numbers for who would face who in the first round, and then the battle commenced. The first battle was pretty sick, both emcees coming with some dope disses, and although MC Dynamite was the deserved winner, the other guy certainly put up a good fight. The second battle wasn't as good as the first though. Ayo probably only spat a couple of dope lines in the three rounds combined, and although Lowkey's disses were dope, it seemed to take him 2 bars in between each diss to think of another one, which got the crowd on his back a little. In the end Lowkey ended up winning, but only really cause the boos for him from the crowd were louder than for Ayo, neither of them really deserved to go to the final. The final was really one sided with MC Dynamite coming out on top, without much of a fight from Lowkey.

After another DJ set, Killa Kela and some other dude came out. For those who don't know, Killa Kela is a beatboxer from the UK. There is no doubting the guy has massive talent, but when your audience is waiting for Mobb Deep, singing pop songs whilst doing the beats at the same time probably isn't the best policy. He did like a 15 minute set, finishing off with the first single from his album or something, but to be honest, although he's skilled he really needs to learn to change his show depending on who he's performing for.

So, after another DJ set, which never really got going properly cause he would play a couple of hot joints and then like a G-Unit record, which really fucked up the flow of it completely, Mobb finally arrived on stage, with Alchemist as their DJ.

All I can say is that I have never seen a crowd wile out so ridiculously when a group have come on stage. Now, prehaps I should have seen it coming, Mobb haven't performed a proper concert in the UK since the Infamous was released, and about 70% of the audience looked pretty thugged out, but still the reaction to them coming on stage was mindblowing. They kicked off with "Runaway", at the end of which like ten of the crowd managed to get on stage, past the one security guy who was there. When they managed to get them all off the stage, Prodigy was like "now, y'all need to calm the fuck down, you gonna have this shit stopped before it's even started yo". But, we weren't given much time to slow down as they went straight into "Survival of the Fittest", probably my favourite Mobb track ever, and certainly one that got the spot moving. They then brought out the rather obvious special guest, Big Noyd and went straight into the acapella track from The Infamous. After that they then did a couple more joints from that album, including Alchemist doing some dope cutting up of "Yo Big Noyd, whattup cousin". Noyd then got his time to shine, doing both versions of "Bang, Bang", after which Alchemist came out from behind the decks and did a track that he rapped on, I'm guessing from his album. Mobb then did a couple of new tracks before going into "G.O.D Part 3" which once again had everyone jumping all over the place, followed by "Drop A Gem On Em", which quite understandably had a similar effect. "Gangstaz Roll" then followed, and after a little talking between Prodigy and Havoc they went into "Burn", which seemed to get the best reaction of the whole night, with a lot of jumping into one another and pushing going on along with cats just wiling out to it. Then came "Shook Ones Part 2", which of course was well received, and they then finished with "Got It Twisted", before leaving to a massive reception.

Despite the fact that their set was only about 50 minutes to an hour, Mobb proved in that time why they are one of the great hiphop groups of our time, churning out banger after banger for a crowd that was loving every minute of it. This was by far the most energetic gig I have ever been to, and I don't think anyone who has seen Mobb live could say that they didn't have a good time.

Pictures:
Killa Kela


Havoc


Prodigy


Big Noyd


Wiling Out


The Aftermath

Leggy Hendrix:
sounds like a cool show, shame about the support tho lol.

how big is the forum compared to the Jazz Cafe?

did you know Jurassic 5 are gonna be there on september 2nd?

On The Edge of Insanity:
The Forum's much bigger than the Jazz Cafe. I saw J5 were performing, might check it out. You know Pharoahe's at the Jazz Cafe at the end of August?

AlerG:
i really want to see mobb and j5 live...sounds like a good concert, peace.

RXL:
Looks like it was a tight concert

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