The music industry isn't in the best of conditions at the moment, especially in the UK, with putrid sh*t like Cher Lloyd effortlessly reaching the number 1 spot in the charts. There are a few beacons of lights of course with Adele and Ed Sheeran seemingly leading the way for British music, but there just aren't enough great artists in the UK emerging. However rap star Tinie Tempah has been cited as the future of British hip hop with his phenomenally successful debut album 'Disc-overy' taking the charts by storm on its 2010 release.
On Monday Tinie packed out the Manchester Evening News Arena on yet another date of his Disc-overy tour and since I picked up a free ticket the night before (yeah I have connections) I headed down there. Now it must be said prior to this gig I wasn't Tinie's biggest fan, sure I liked 'Pass Out' and 'Frisky', but they're not what you would call great songs. Be that as it may, you blast those songs out on a stage with flashing lights and fireworks and they become great.
Tinie performed above and beyond my expectations (which were admittedly low) making what could have been a firework display with a few songs sprinkled on top into an actual music show. You know like a real one. He kicked things off in explosive fashion by jumping up through the bottom of the stage like a theatrical WWE wrestler and went straight into doing his thing. After a couple of lesser known songs he soon went into more well known tracks with 'Frisky' sounding incredible even without faithful companion Labrinth's presence. We then had more crowd pleasers with recent Wiz Khalifa collaboration 'When I'm Gone' and 'Wonderman' slowing building up the masses enjoyment levels. The latter apparently requiring everyone to make a W with there hands which just seemed ridiculously stupid to me and I can't explain why.
The uplifting 'Written In The Stars' soon followed which as expected got everyone singing along and was definitely a high point, which made it slightly disappointing when Tinie decided to slow things down. He emerged in the middle of the arena where he performed an acoustic song 'Love Suicide' (after we sung happy birthday for the 23 year old) which despite being impressive vocally really brought the crowd to a stand still just when things building up.
Love Suicide with Ester Dean
This is a minor complaint however because things soon picked up after an obviously fake Skype call with Swedish House Mafia we were treated to 'Miami to Ibiza', a song I originally despised. Hearing it live made what seemed like a such stupid song pretty damn enjoyable and is exactly what was needed for before the encore. Tinie thankfully didn't keep us waiting long and came back out for a bizarre song titled 'Mosh Pit' where he essentially yelled at the crowd to make a mosh pit...few complied. It was laughably terrible and was so unexpected that it actually became great; strange really. The encore was saved with two fantastic renditions of new Labrinth single 'Earthquake' and of course to finish the show 'Pass Out', which got absolutely everybody moving; even the parents with the earplugs.
Tinie Tempah is an average rapper, but he is a fantastic showman. His charisma shone through out the entire gig and refused to let us get restless, if a slow song was played he would follow it up with a club anthem and he just kept things going until we were on the brink of passing out (sorry). He might not be the future of English rap, but he converted me from a "I think he's OK' guy to an actual fan and that he is no easy feat just ask any of the other 736 British rappers. Despite not knowing a few of the songs, the ones that I did know were performed incredibly well and that's all I could really ask of Tinie.
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