Live Review

Sugar Hill Gang – IndigO2, London

• 20th Dec 2010

This pioneering group are arguably the guys that put the ‘hip’ into ‘hip-hop’. Their single ‘Rapper’s Delight’ speaks for itself and has been cited as the first hip hop song to this day even way back when it was released in 1979. So when the opportunity to see these legends along with two other soul legends too at the Indigo2 for an Ultimate Boogie Night, how did it all go down?

Before I get into how the hip hop trio performed and their overall performance, it is worth noting of the two ‘support acts’ and their performances too. First to start off the Ultimate Boogie Night was Tom Browne a fine and inspirational trumpet player who brought us that soul hit ‘Funkin for Jamaica’. His presence on stage with his MC Hammer gold trousers and his ever so cool backing band too provided a strong positive start to the evening. Evelyn ‘Champange’ King who is a true soul female icon with her big hit ‘Love Come Down’, again like Tom Browne, she provided a truly strong and feet moving performance. Two legends who keep on ‘boogie-ing’ away even in their ‘olden years’.

The Sugarhill Gang though were the ones that everyone was all there to see, the three guys that put hip hop on the map, now with all due respect to Ms ‘Champagne’ King and Mr Browne, and their top notch performances, the hip hop trio however did steal the show that night. From the moment they stepped out on stage and opened with the classic ‘Apache’ or to some people who always refer to it as the ‘Jump On It’ song because of the dance made famous by Will Smith in the Fresh Prince, it was a big start to a big performance and ofcourse with me being a big fan of the show and group me and lot of the audience felt they had gone back to 1979, the disco ball above our heads, it did honestly have that ‘boogie night’ feel.

Of-course though, the three songs that everyone was expecting to hear from the trio were their three big hits – ‘Apache’ (which we already heard), ‘8th Wonder’ and of-course ‘Rapper’s Delight’. However, the trio also performed five covers of hip hop songs in which Master G referred to as their ‘big favourite songs’ one being the big hit ‘Walk This Way’. Also, it was the trio’s interaction with the audience that added something a little more to their performance, every now and then the trio would shout to the crowd for a scream, hands in the air.. it almost did feel that these guys only appeared on the music scene just yesterday and to me their set sounded just as fresh as it most likely did those thirty odd years ago.

Their biggest highlight though for me was their performance of Grandmaster Flash’s two famous songs ‘White Lines’ and ‘The Message’ again two incredibly soul sounding hits that did what every other song the acts performed that night, made the audience move. And if that wasn’t enough they decided to close their set with their big hit – Rappers Delight with the whole crowd dancing away hands in the air and singing along with Wonder Mike, Master G and Big Bank Hank.

I also got a chance to get a photo and autograph from the trio at the end and they are truly nice humble guys and it still amazes me that they are still still going and have been for quite possibly the last 30 odd years.

Although I was probably the youngest soul in that audience that night, it was truly a ‘fun’ experience nonetheless. Seeing all these middle aged mid 30 year old people ‘boogie-ing’ away as if 1979 was just a week ago regardless of what they hear on today’s radio stations, and for me it was a sort of one of those experiences where you feel that you are experiencing this feeling and atmosphere of these ‘boogie nights’ that people were captivated by at that time.

However once it was all over and it was just that whilst on the way home I along with a fair few more members of the audience could not just stop signing that that famous line…’Now what you hear is not a test..’