Slum Village Runs It Back At Manchester's The Blues Kitchen

With most debates over these past few weeks about the nature of hip-hop. At its, centre there's competition but there has always been a deep appreciation for the technical aspects of what makes a good rapper. Flow, cadence, delivery. An ability to manipulate language, and shape new meanings.

Music is something that makes you feel good. And nobody tapped better into that than The American rap collective group Slum Village.

Slum Village remind us at their show in Manchester that Hi-Hop is joyful and playfulness, whilst also being able to switch into that rebellious spirit that is deeply associated with youth culture.

The group founded in the 90s in Detroit with the late legend J Dilla, provided a musical experience that has transcended generations as people forgot about life outside The Blues Kitchen and stayed present. The Blues Kitchen is a very popular restaurant and bar that is also the home for live blues, soul, R&B and rap music.

Original members of the group T3 and Young RJ opened with the bass-bumping old-school hip hop bumper ‘Freeze’ demonstrating a fast-paced lyrical dexterity with ferociousness.

Before fluidly transitioning to a silk rendition of ‘The Look of Love, Pt.1’ as the crowd sang along to it. Staying in that space tracks such as the velvet-toned ‘Fall in Love’.

Some of the memorable moments were watching the transformed room into a block party on ‘I don’t Know’ and the jazz-influenced ‘Fantastic’ as the crowd interacted by waving hands in the air to Old school hip hop.

The pair effortlessly rifted off each other, slipping into pockets with practised ease but also genuine chemistry from decades of knowing each other. Young RJ affectionally calls T3 “his brother”, before going into ‘Fuck the police’ an up-tempo bop.

“This song was by a guy who used to wear a polo you might know”, they tease the crowd approaching the end, enjoying their excitement before going into fan favourite and classic ‘Selfish’. The nostalgic Kayne West production vibrates off the walls.

They end their set with ‘Raise it up’ and the DJ cuts off the instrumental halfway to allow T3 to end his verse in acapella. His words rang out into the silence.

The night itself was a journey through the decades to the present day as we go through their discovery Detroit Deli (A Taste of Detroit), Trinity (Past, Present And Future), Connect Set and much more. They announce a forthcoming album and proceed to perform tracks off of it such as the slow jam-infused.

“The whole concept of the album, this performance and the tour is to have fun.”

And that whole sentiment is reflected when a fan grabs the mic at the end to ask for more songs, singing her own impromptu one until Slum Village comes back out for an encore to the applause of the crowd.

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