What started as a very damp and cold day ended in a sweaty, exciting night thanks to Dizzee Rascal!
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Dizzee Rascal’s album ‘boy in da corner’, Rascal put together a one night only event at the o2 celebrating not only his album but paying homage to grime and even referencing his private radio days!
On Wednesday, March 9th, Rising East reporters Molly Monaghan and Charice Wright took a trip down to North Greenwich’s O2 to go back in time and party like it was 2003.
The main event, which was advertised to start at 18:30, did not kick off until just after nine o’clock. However, there were two main opening acts, that helped rile up the crowd in time for Rascals’ entrance.
Lady Leshurr was the first opening act to grace the stage. The Birmingham-born singer performed four songs in total, three of her own and the last was a freestyle that featured a snippet of ‘Work’ by Rihanna. She sang two out of six of her popular ‘queen speeches’ which had the crowd believing they were back in 2016 and honestly it felt like you should’ve automatically received a ‘snapback’, purely just for the nostalgia of the song.
JME, the notorious grime artist, followed shortly after Leshurr’s performance. He was introduced to the stage with his well-known song ‘Man don’t care’. The crowd was ecstatic when they realized who it was, the difference between how engaged the crowd was with Lady Leshurr in comparison to JME was very clear.
In between sets, he spoke to the crowd making sure the crowd was not ‘sleeping’ and sang songs from his past and upcoming songs as well. During his set, he bought out a more recent rapper by the name of ‘OneAcen’ where they did a duet of the song ‘No No No’ which was released a month ago.
JME ended his set by bringing on the rest of the ‘boy better know’ group and really hyped up the early 2000s vibes in time for Rascals’ ten past nine set to start. Throughout JME’s performances, he would throw his merch into the crowd and if you were the lucky ones in the front row, you were going home with a t-shirt to solidify your night!
Before Dizzee rascal was unveiled from behind the curtain a loud bell toil started to count down. The curtains went up and the set started with the stage lit in a yellow hue and Rascal was hidden in a caged box, a live reenactment of the infamous ‘boy in da corner’ album cover.
Rascal kicked off his set with ‘sittin’ Here’ and followed along the chronological order of the release of the album.
The stage sets and the duets were a combination of success, the crowd went ballistic every time the song transitioned into the next.
A highlight of the beginning of the set was when Rascal began a song with a choral introduction, the transition between the choir’s soft voices and the grimy beats incited a varied number of emotions within the crowd.
A massive hit
Rascal’s popular song ‘I love u’ was a massive hit during the set and really incited those roars from the audience. It especially did that for our reporters.
Throughout the songs, the stage would change lighting and imagery would appear to fit the vibe of the song that was playing.
Our Rising East reporters could recall the intensity of the bass felt like their “hearts were beating out of their chests” and it felt like a “whole body experience”.
He went deeper into his past and played homage to his private radio days. Rascal rapped along to his ‘street fighter freestyle’ with old-school imagery to go alongside!
Molly, one of the reporters was particularly looking forward to hearing some of Rascal’s ‘newer’ stuff, like ‘Bonkers’,’ Holiday’ and ‘Come dance with me’ but was convinced he wouldn’t do them due to the fact the tour was specific to his debut album being twenty years old.
However, to her surprise, Rascal also went ‘into the future’ and finished off with his four most charted songs ‘Bonkers’, ‘Holiday’, ‘Dance with me’ and ‘Bassline junkie’ as well as unveiling new music. This really solidified the night for both reporters, as well as the crowd judging from their reaction.
Both our reporters slipped out just before the chaos of the fans hit the London underground and get home in a safe and timely manner.