An absolute blast from the re-energised elder statesman of grime
Iam not sure the Royal Festival Hall has witnessed many shows like this. The plush, sonically pristine concert hall resounded to deep sub bass and heavy beats as veteran grime rapper Giggs delivered a short, sharp, hyperenergetic set. The atmosphere in the venue was one of fierce, empowering joy as fans danced in the aisles, rushed the front of the stage, stood on seats, waved arms and phones in the air, and roared lyrics. We’ve all heard lusty singalongs, but this was more like a mass shout-along, one of such unity that it felt as if the room was shaking.
Ten years ago, grime wouldn’t have had a chance of being played at the Southbank Centre. It is a mark of the bold British electro-rap genre’s slow progress towards mainstream cultural acceptance that this year’s 24th Meltdown Festival included a night of rap and DJ sets. South-london rapper Nathaniel Thompson acquired his nickname Giggs from a childhood propensity for fits of laughter (it is short for Giggles), but he has had a career mired in controversy. He has never been noted for dizzying wordplay, more for bringing a thuggish gravitas to grime’s hard beats, creating deft narratives of crime and redemption. Serving two years for possession of a firearm between 2003 and 2005, he became such a focus of the Metropolitan Police’s Operation Trident that many venues were forced to cancel his shows. For a while, it seemed to stall his career but, as young artists have risen in his wake, the 34-year-old has become almost a revered elder statesman. His self-released, independent fourth album, Landlord, reached number two in the UK charts last year.
This show felt like a victory lap. Giggs played only 40 minutes and relied heavily on crowd-pleasing old hits. He proved a more energised figure on stage than the nuanced and almost stately narrator of recent records. He bounced around, egging on callback responses and waving his DJ to stop and rewind a track whenever he felt the crowd weren’t frenetic enough. What was missing was any sense of crossover that an appearance at the Meltdown Festival might have warranted. Two hours of sets by DJS and rappers before Giggs took to the stage illustrated the limitations of the genre, although Nadia Rose exhibited a cheeky energy and underlying musicality that has marked her out as a rising star. But it was disappointing that the festival’s curator, experimental rapper MIA, did not make an appearance to try to lend this show some context. There were no adventurous collaborations that might have opened it up to the uninitiated. Perhaps grime’s proponents feel there is no need to reach out to a pop culture that made them pariahs for so long.
The headliner’s swaggering set was an absolute blast, a masterful demonstration of how much you can achieve with a DJ, a big sound system and a man who really knows how to work a microphone.