Leeds Hip Hop Scene

Although I’d heard positive things about the headline act Zero dB’s new album Bongos, Bleeps & Basslines, I’d still not got round to actually listening to it before the show. Instead my enthusiasm fell to the next act down the roster, Kids In Tracksuits. Their immensely enjoyable mini album New Kids Rock The Block has been stuck in my CD player since I got my grubby little mitts on it two weeks ago. Their distinctive brand of hip hop mixes old and new to full affect grouping themselves somewhere between Prefuse 73 and DJ Shadow. The Nottingham duo have been turning a lot industry heads of late and their live performance certainly made it apparent as to why. For those of you interested, there set up was basically a laptop, turntables and a Kaoss Pad. Scratch DJ, Andy Hemsley took to the decks and looked after the Kaoss Pad whilst Matt Cutler stood firmly behind his laptop. Andy’s dazzling display in turntablism was seemingly carried off with ease on tracks such as Bugged and Safe Place To Play. Whilst The Thing With Two Heads and Uprock Theme with their hyped up, bit-crushing basslines spread the attention across to Matt on the laptop. The Nottingham kids were also accompanied by Emcee Killa who thankfully remained on the sidelines for most of the set, occasionally backing up the scratched samples and repeating intelligible mutterings that didn’t seem to have any relevance to what was happening onstage. He’s actually not a bad emcee when he flows it’s gotta be said. His presence was just a little too much of a detraction from the vibe of KIT. I’m afraid I don’t have much to say about Zero dB’s Performance as I left about two tracks into the set. Absolutely nothing against them, just word had got around about a massive house party in Hyde Park and the friends I was with were fit to leave. Sweaty drug induced dancing in a claustrophobic basement to D&B ensued into the early hours.

The Editor