The Urban Scene in Portsmouth!
2010 has become a great year for the UK urban scene. The UK funky movement has dominated the raves and Grime artists have jumped into the commercial market.
This month last year there was only 2 UK urban acts in the UK 40 Official UK Singles Charts. This was Dizzee Rascal with Bonkers and Tinchy Stryder featuring N Dubz with Number 1. If you compare that to this year we have Dizzee Rascal again with Dirtee Disco, N Dubz with We Dance On, Aggro Santos with Candy, Roll Deep with Good Times, Plan B with She Said, Tinie Tempah with Pass Out and Professor Green with I need You Tonight. Now that is impressive.
As UK artists move into the commercial charts there is now a high demand for them to perform at club events. As Portsmouth is outside London it has never been a location recognized to have a huge urban market. That is until now. The students dominate Portsmouth City and since the beginning of the university year (October 2009) there have been a great number of nightclub performances by major artists.
In January the launch of the Official Mixtape Awards took place at the Portsmouth Guild Hall. The line up included Wiley, Bashy, Scorcher, Wretch 32, Devlin, Ghetts, Marvell and many more UK artists. Radio 1xtra’s Ras Qwame and the beautiful Kele Le Roc hosted the ceremony together and it was broadcasted live on DJ Grind’s RnG show. This was hopefully the start of a yearly event to celebrate the hard working UK producers, rappers and singers. Its events like this that help artists break through into the charts.
With Portsmouth not being very big the competition is extremely high to host the major events. Rough Hill and Eskimo 11 are two companies that battle to control the student market. Although they do not directly target the urban market they are fully aware that it is dominating the entertainment industry right now. Together the two companies have hosted all the major events this year.
Just after the last ever celebrity big brother international icon SisQo took a small visit to portsmouth
In Tiger Tiger there have been performances from Sway, Skepta, Tinie Tempah, Scorcher, K.I.G. Family, MC Versatile, Pied Piper, Jungleman, even Westwood came back to do his yearly routine visit. In Liquid & Envy there have been performances from Ironik, Roll Deep, Ras Qwame, KIG Family and DJ Luck & MC Neat.
In other smaller venues there have been performances from Artful Dodger, Oxide Neutrino, Donaeo, Tribal Magz, Dot Star, FDM and the list goes on.
The last event I went to was the Summer Ball hosted by Eskimo 11. It was the first major student event to be held at the Pyramids Centre on the sea front. Eskimo topped off the uni year for me by inviting Lethal B to headline the event. The venue was fully packed with a mixed crowd and Bizzle has 1500 people shouting POW, yeah I’m Lethal da B!
As the summer is approaching and the students prepare to leave, is the urban scene in Portsmouth going to stay alive? I really hope so and I want all the local DJs and promoters to help me keep it alive. If you know about any events or if you are hosting any yourself then please click here to get them on the events listing page. I will continue to share all the new music and videos I find so please spread the word about loudent.co.uk!
