Music / Bristol
Review: Stormzy, O2 Academy
Stormzy gave Bristol a good show on Friday night. After a busy month of live shows for the young Grime emcee, he managed to keep the energy levels high during his Bristol performance. Bristol is also the hometown of his current girlfriend, Maya Jama, so he made an extra effort to please the excited audience.
With the recent release of his new studio album, Gang Signs and Prayer, some of the songs were to be expected, nonetheless he did also include some of his older tunes to keep the crowd buzzing. Who else but Stormzy could hold an audience enraptured in a soulful gospel performance only to then burst into a heavy Grime track and get the crowd skanking again? It’s a sign of a powerful artist when the same audience jumping up and down with gun fingers in the air start singing along to a peaceful gospel ballad two seconds later. ‘Blinded by Your Grace Pt. 1’ is a heart-warming track and it’s nice to know that Stormzy can bring the same heart-warming energy to a live show. However, the crowd definitely got more enjoyment from the higher tempo tracks.
He ended strongly with popular tracks ‘Shut Up’ and ‘Know Me From’ and performed several other of his most popular tracks throughout the night. It’s sometimes nice when an artist performs a couple of unreleased or less known tracks but unfortunately we didn’t get that this time. While Stormzy is clearly a very talented individual and the achievements he’s made for the Grime scene are unquestionable, there is still a level of irony in some of his lyrics. When he performs the lines from his ‘One Take Freestyle’ – “Think my white friends can say n***a? And I’ll stand here like that’s jigga? Mad.” – a majority of the white audience sings along to the lyrics without omitting the n-word while Stormzy continues with his performance likes it’s nothing, as is his right. Who the responsibility lies with on that one, I’m not so sure – (no need to go into the nuances of systemic racism in a music review, right?) It’s worth pondering.
is needed now More than ever
Overall the WickedSkengMan showed us that he’s just as talented live in the flesh as he is on your YouTube browser. The crowd enjoyed themselves and that’s always the most important thing. They got what they paid for and Stormzy knew exactly how to keep them entertained; whether that be playing the intro of a popular track to get the crowd screaming a couple of seconds before he graced the stage, or getting his bredrin to pull out a chair from backstage so that he could sit down and perform his gospel tracks in a relaxed and sincere manner.
We hope to see Stormzy return to Bristol in the near future, but perhaps next time at an event that might attract a slightly different audience. The O2 Academy is good for what it is but clearly the event was aimed at a fairly young audience. Perhaps that’s the demographic that Stomzy attracts but it tends to get heavily overcrowded in there too. It would be nice to see Stormzy perform at a smaller, more intimate venue in front of a crowd that knew of Grime’s existence before 2015 – but then again, maybe I’m just fussy.
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