The ‘King of the North’ brought the grime scene to Nottingham’s Rock City last Thursday and completely smashed his performance; or “shut down” the whole place as Bugzy likes to put it.
Arriving at the venue, people were already queueing round the whole block, dressed in their finest attire (and most people completed it with the humble bum bag), eager to get in. The crowd was full of people of all ages, actually surprising a naïve me and proving that he has a large demographic. They all collected round the stage and the first support act kicked off.
DJ Tommy Disaronno brought some grime classics to get the excited audience pumping; and that he did, which resulted in circles and mosh pits from the get-go. He has only been DJing for 5 years now after he discovered his love for it during university and you would think he had been doing it for a lot longer judging by his professionalism.
Later joining DJ Tommy Disaronno was rising rap star and freestyle pro Ambush Buzzworl, who again the audience loved. He’s recently worked with rap icons Skepta and Chip on the single “Jumpy – Remix” which has nearly 2 million streams on Spotify. With his other single “Man Can’t” also reaching nearly 2 million streams on Spotify, Ambush is surely one to keep your eye on.
After several mosh pits and many cups of water passed through the crowd by security, the fans were more than primed for the arrival of Bugzy. The crowd went wild as he exploded onto the stage and he had them in the palm of his hand after one song. This show truly was a one man show, (if you disregard his DJ and occasional towel giver behind him) so for him to go out there and capture a crowd so easily by himself was amazing to see and I give him respect for that. He truly knows how to work a stage!
He delivered hits after hits, including his most popular songs such as “Beauty and the Beast”, “Run (feat. Rag’n’Bone Man)” and “Die By The Gun”. He gave us an insight into the meaning of some of his songs such as “Pain”, from his first album; “Walk With Me”, which he said he dedicated to his younger cousin; and also informed us that he wrote “Run” when he was a kid; giving us more of an insight into his childhood whilst growing up in Manchester, justifying that he is a talented song writer and his songs do have deep meanings behind them, contradicting some naïve views of the grime genre being just noise. A song I found particularly good was a song from his most recent album ‘B. Inspired’ called “Drama” which initially has this beautiful electric guitar riff which is almost Quentin Tarantino-ey and then Bugzy drops a beat and comes in with his iconic Mancunian accent.
The set was shorter than I expected, being only an hour long. However, in this time he packed in the hits and the crowd did more mosh pits than I’ve ever seen, so I was sure they were exhausted by the time Bugzy left; but alas no! Bugzy leaves the stage and they continue to form a circle to a song which plays through the speakers, proving he left them wanting more. Bugzy has now finished his tour and is busy with his new clothing line ‘B.Malone’, but I’m sure he’ll be hitting up the stages again very soon.
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