The Grouch, Eligh, Brother Ali, and Lyrics Born

Corey Scoffern, aka. The Grouch, is involved with the underground hip hop group Living Legends, and has been extremely influential in the rapping community over the past 20 years. He’s also collaborated on some big tracks with artists such as Eligh, and Zion I over the years. His support act got everyone in the mood for his set, so the energy was really high and pretty intense before he even came out on stage. Everyone was cheering like mad, and the opening music for his track Wish You a Good Day played over the auditorium.
He came on stage to the intro music, and launched straight into the song, before introducing himself, or his DJ. Half way through the song, he signalled for the music to have an interlude, and welcomed everyone to the show. The applause was epic, and everyone was jumping up and down, begging him to continue with the incredible song. The great thing about The Grouch, is that although his raps are fast paced and wordy, he still manages to articulate, and especially in a live performance, I feel like I can relate really well to the lyrics.
He played all his hits, such as tracks from Lighthouses, and They Don’t Have This, and he brought the house down every time. He’s an incredibly talented artist, who needs to keep producing and creating great music.

Eligh Nachowitz, or as he’s most commonly known as, simply Eligh, is one of my favourite hip hop rappers working the circuit at the moment. From the beginning, he was set for success, founding his high school hip hop duo Boogalu Badboys with the musician Scarub, and then later the who met the rapper Murs, and there they formed 3 Melancholy Gypsys. From there on, Eligh has worked consistently, and had made it far in his career since then.

Although he’s struggled with issues surrounding drugs and alcohol, and his alteraction in his music after his time in recovery, has been an eye opening insight to his life. He put on an absolutely magnificent show when I saw him recently. He opened the show with his track Chronik, and had everyone singing along right away. He was great at interacting with the audience, and getting everyone to dance and sing along to the show.

The selection of music that he played was perfect, as he was totally aware of his audience and got everyone singing along to the remixes where he used samples, and put his arms in the air encouragingly to get everyone dancing along to the tracks.

Brother Ali brings the politically potent lyricism that he puts into all his recordings onto the stage and leaves the crowd in awe of his flawless flow. There’s no denying that he is a born entertainer, and at his shows you can’t help but notice that virtually every member of the crowd is captivated and excited by his music. The live band that accompanies him transforms a standard rap show into a great live gig. Although his backing band is made up of some hugely talented musicians, Brother Ali is most definitely the star of the show. He seems very comfortable on stage and never fails to express his gratitude to all the fans that come to see him. Between tracks he engages in an entertaining and intimate back and forth with the audience, encouraging them to engage with his lyrical message. Quality hip hop, honestly staged.

It was awesome to see Lyrics Born doing his thing, rapping and performing awesome hip hop, and also with his fantastic backing vocalist performing with him. He opened the show with The World is Calling, and it was a great track to get everyone into the vibe of the show. The great thing about having a backing vocalist with him was that Lyrics Born was able to speak to the audience over her vocals, and get everyone dancing and singing along. He kept shouting ‘all the beautiful people make some noise’, which got everybody on the dance floor, showing their appreciation for his music, and just having a really great time.
He played through the new album, Real People which was so brilliant to hear live. Most people were big fans at the concert, so everyone was familiar with the new music. His performance, both vocally and physically was even better than I anticipated, and his energy was so high throughout the entire concert. I’ve seen many hip hop artists live before, and something that really stood out about the lyrics born show was that his diction was fantastic and it was easy to understand what he was rapping about, and in the past I’ve found that other artists struggle with this. His lyrics are powerful and grounding, and hearing them live brought another layer of meaning to them, being able to see his facial expression and body language. I’m an even bigger fan after the show.