News / / 19.06.13

JJ DOOM

fabric, London | June 13th

Daniel Dumile has been layering up on disguises since the late nineties, from Metal Face, King Geedorah, to Viktor Vaughn and the impeccable Madvillain project, to his recent gorging of experimentalism alongside Jneiro Jarel. The creation of JJ Doom saw the excellent album Keys to the Kuffs drop late last year, and the record added further diversity and influence to DOOM’s trajectory across contemporary rap music.

A Tuesday night hip-hop show confined to one room is never going to attract the masses like Fabric’s world renowned Friday and Saturday events, but the disappointment of tonight’s show is due to more than just timing. Initially, Room 1 stands static with awkward school disco vibes, slowly filling with people from the edges of the dance floor as twirling lasers and thick smoke pump into a sparsely populated room, turning one of London’s most important clubs into the set of Phoenix Nights while a support act plays through a DJ set of glitchy, bass centred electronic tracks and shiny hip-hop tunes. The excellent beatsmith Bambooman rolls through his set, sounding great on one of London’s best sound systems. However, the set doesn’t grab the attention it deserves, as the frustrated crowd are nervously anticipating the arrival of the headlining duo who are 30 minutes late, and are supposedly waiting backstage. After forty minutes pass, the lights shine bright and the Redbull amulet projects onto the back of the stage, JJ Doom enter the stage. Or at least we think…

A masked man takes to the stage and sets up pads and controllers, which are whipped out of a bag and lined up on the table, and each item is strapped with JJ DOOM stickers. He says he has a secret to tell us and that Jneiro Jarel couldn’t make it (it later transpires that this was in fact was JJ, who’d decided to perform under a new persona named ‘Gone the Hero’). The vibe in the room goes cold instantly, yet a flicker of hope for DOOM’s performance survives amongst the crowd. Eventually the rapper arrives on stage, with enough alcohol in his system to kill a racehorse, or at least this show. The rest is what you’d expect from the situation, each song ruined by a performance that was sloppy, bizarre and to be frank, totally shit.

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Words: Charlie Wood

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