The Guardian - Kitty Empire
Kano review – the grime star comes of age
Royal Albert Hall, London
The star of TV’s Top Boy storms the Albert Hall with a set that fuses beauty with the raw sound of the streets
Tonight, Kano takes full advantage of the Albert Hall’s hallowed acoustics to bring Hoodies into 3D. Because this works deserves it, he deploys a four-piece band, a gospel choir, a horn section and, towards the end, a small army of steel pan players, the Metronomes Steel Orchestra.
It’s like church: everyone bar the guest MCs is wearing white and the gospel singers stamp their mellifluous authority on a number of songs. It’s like carnival, too: the horns are mobile and wander about the stage, while a few steel pan players shimmy to the fore. The steady backbeat of Jamaican culture, and the sound systems that gave birth to the original 00s garage and grime crews, are all deeply entrenched in Kano’s offering, audibly on Caribbean-leaning tracks such as Can’t Hold We Down.
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