Hip-Hop has always been a saving grace in my life - admittedly, the first time I really fell in love with music was when I heard the house remix of Run DMC’s ‘It’s Like That’ by Jason Nevins in 1997. I was in year 5 and I begged my mum to buy me the cassette tape from Woolworths - I still remember the artwork, a black case with flaming yellow text that reminds me of the Thrasher logo. I was so proud of this little cassette that I took it to primary school with me, pulling it out of my mini drawstring rucksack and placing it gently on my desk next to my pencil case filled with scented gel pens like a prize. ‘It’s Like That’ went on to top the charts, breaking the Spice Girls’ run of consecutive no.1 songs - when it came out, the Spice Girls sat at no.2 with ‘Stop’ and it felt like a win.
As I got older, Hip-Hop continued to resonate with me more than most humans; it became my escapism, my voice of reason, my friend.
When I joined high school, I found myself standing next to a girl called Nad in the gym hall before a PE lesson; we started speaking about music and I was simultaneously impressed and defeated as I realized her music knowledge was better than mine. This was the year 2000 - UK Garage was huge and UK rap and grime was coming into its own; Dizzee Rascal was still doing sets on pirate radio stations while in the process of making ‘Boy In Da Corner’. Nad would come over with Lord of the Mics DVDs and Sidewinder sets with Dizzee and DJ Slimzee that had been burned onto discs that we’d play on an old Phillips combi CD cassette player. (No smartphones, just vibes.)
It became a tradition, Nad and I sitting on my couch over the weekends and talking music. We relied on stations like Choice FM, BBC Radio 1Xtra and TV channels MTV Base and Channel U for a fix of new sounds. When I got a little older and was allowed to go (window) shopping by myself, Dub Vendor in Clapham Junction was the place. HMV was also a haven, a library of divine sounds for everyone in my generation.
I would spend hours in HMV choosing what poster I’d buy, if only I had the money - one day, I got a few quid and bought a 24 x 36 inch poster of Tupac topless with a ‘Thug Life’ beanie on, holding a joint in one hand and raising a middle finger with the other, pants low with a gun sticking out of the crotch of his jeans. I went home and pulled chunks of blu tack apart with my fingers and smeared it onto the back of the poster, sticking it to my wall in glee.
Nad and I were obsessed with Tupac - in 2003, we went to the Odeon cinema in Streatham and watched ‘Tupac: Resurrection’, a documentary film on ‘Pac, told in his own words. There were only three of us in the theatre - one man who had come on his own, and us. As the movie ended we were sobbing in a silent theatre, nothing but the obscenely loud crunching of the man’s popcorn disrupting our tears and making us laugh.
We started going to concerts when our parents would let us, and Choice FM Junior Jams were the best thing to have ever existed. (For those who don’t know, the radio station Capital Xtra used to be called Choice FM, and they used to hold day parties for under 18s). My first time at Notting Hill Carnival was also with Nad - it was the mid-noughties, and I swear it was the last time it really felt like summer in the UK. Why is that? I guess summers just bang differently when you’re young and have six weeks off to do literally nothing. My God, I loathe adult life.
Anyway, Queen’s elite Nas was one of our favourite rappers. In 2001, he released ‘Stillmatic’ and in 2003, he released the ‘God’s Son’ album that featured ‘I Can’ - a song that still makes me feel away listening back to it now, 18 years later. So in 2005 when he announced he would be putting on a show at Brixton Academy, Nad and I jumped at the chance.
So on March 21, 2005 - a few months before our sixteenth birthdays - Nad and I left our hometown of Croydon at a ridiculously early time. The doors opened at 7pm, so we decided to start queuing at 4pm, which as I type that, sounds absolutely mental, because it was. By 6.45, the queue was heaving and we were at the front, smug and bursting with excitement. As the doors opened the entire crowd behind us began to push and we let the momentum propel us against the barriers at the front of the stage.
Eventually, Nas came out in a NY cap (a week after the show, I went to Sports Direct and bought a cheaper version of it), said the word “peace,” and everyone went bezerk. We were some of the only girls at the front, swimming in a sea of men in their 20’s who were - and I cannot emphasize this enough - GASSED. Nad is a bit taller than I and so she managed to keep her feet to the ground, but the swell of the crowd to the front of the stage meant I was crushed against the barrier that stopped us from spilling onto the stage.
Surrounded by guys waving horrendously basic camera phones in my face - (it was a Nokia era, after all) as they tried to capture Nas performing 'NY State of Mind', I felt like I was going to pass out. My face was pressed into the barrier, my feet had left the floor and I was now forced to lean on a man who was so enthralled by Nas that he hadn’t noticed he’d essentially taken my spot and had literally - in the worst way - swept me off my feet. His back was sweaty, and it was making me a bit sick. I had waited for this for hours though, and I refused to be moved. Despite feeling like I was on the brink of being crushed, I was awestruck as Nas performed ‘If I Ruled The World’, ‘One Love’, and ‘The World Is Yours’. When I put my mind to it, I remember it like yesterday (and let me tell you, I don’t remember alot).
When Nas decided to perform ‘Made You Look’, everyone lost their fucking shit. I was pressed up against the barrier like a pancake, and I was starting to feel like a very sweaty, vertical piece of roadkill. I was going to faint, there was no doubt now. I think I did, because the next thing I remember was a security guard by the stage who looked like a grumpy uncle lifting me by my underarms over the barrier, saving me. But I hadn’t wanted to be saved - I’d come to see Nas. So I burst into tears when, as a surprise, Dizzee Rascal came on stage to perform a verse over the ‘Made You Look’ instrumental. Dizzee had released ‘Boy In Da Corner’ two years ago at this point and the pivotal album had defined that decade for me. There I was, without my friend, standing outside the loos by the side of the stage unable to see as my UK hero had joined my US hero. I was pissed.
30 minutes into the show and Nas had an interval to pay homage to Hip-Hop, playing Lauryn Hill’s ‘Lost Ones’. As Nad and I vibed as best we could from opposite sides of the barrier, we heard a gunshot. Nobody batted an eyelid, assuming it was part of the set.
A witness later told the police that they spotted a man in the crowd wearing a balaclava who walked to the bar area, pulled a gun out, and let off two shots. A 20-year-old man nearby suffered a small gunshot wound to their shoulder, and thankfully reports later said he was okay.
Meanwhile, I was still oblivious and wiping away my tears of embarrassment and disappointment after being crushed and rescued. Suddenly I started to notice people screaming and running and I managed to get back over the barrier that had been dismantled in the commotion and was reunited with Nad in a daze. Nas had been taken off the stage and as people were running towards the doors, Nas’s DJ, L.E.S, was still on stage, spinning Lethal B’s ‘Pow’ and Pay As You Go Cartel's ‘Know We’ in a mark of respect for Black British music. He didn’t give a fuck, and I somewhat rate that insanity.
We stumbled out in shock as 30 police officers stormed in - 10 of them armed - and had started searching people who were still lingering around the venue. I don’t remember much after that apart from standing amongst the equally dazed crowd outside the Brixton Academy.
We didn’t let that put us off concerts though, and Nad and I went to many more concerts over the years - from Beyoncé (twice!) to seeing Dizzee Rascal perform ‘Boy In Da Corner’ live for the album’s 15th anniversary in 2018 - that was maybe the best show of my life, and a teenage dream fulfilled.
In a poetic twist of fate, I actually met Nas seven years after the concert, when I was a music editor at MTV UK. I interviewed him about all things music and we spoke about our shared love of Hip-Hip across the pond. For some reason I never brought up that concert, though.
What was your favourite concert? Tell me in the comments and let’s cry and relive a life once lived together.
Despite growing up obsessed with a totally different genre of music, I can relate to this. One of my most memorable concerts was queuing for absolutely hours to be at the very front of a Soundgarden concert. I was rewarded with them playing my favourite album, start to finish, in it's entirety. Amazing. Then after their set, Black Sabbath came on and I have never felt a collective mood change so quickly. Everything suddenly became about noise and aggression, not music. I genuinely thought I was going to die trampled under the feet of sweaty, angry shouting men, but made it out to tell the tale :)
Girlllll you have taken me down memory lane, as a kid i never gotnto enjoy concerts sadly, but the story of standing in HMV for hours, that was my place after, staring at posters hoping one day i can buy one haha. Love it