Example

It’s a strange old journey that Example’s been on these past few years; he first emerged into the public consciousness in 2009, when his second record, Won’t Go Quietly, suggested that he was ready to ditch the sound that had carved him out a reputation as one of the underground’s most exciting prospects - the straight-up grime and hip hop crossover that characterised his debut, What We Made - and instead pursue something altogether more commercially viable. This began, with the likes of ‘Dirty Face’, as a blend of house, dance and rap, but alongside it were tracks like ‘Kickstarts’, which had a genuine pop sensibility and hit number one in the charts as a result. That success, in turn, elevated Example to somewhere that nobody - even himself - could have imagined six or seven years ago; arena status, as he toured the UK with Benga last year in support of his fourth album, The Evolution of Man. To those shows, he brought the same basic blueprint that made his many high-profile festival slots a roaring success; a live band, a laser-heavy light show, and the utilisation of every possible opportunity to have a surely-exhausted crowd jumping. He’s done all of this at the expense of a fair bit of credibility, but really, the swagger with which he’s pulled off his reinvention is to be commended.