What was meant to be a night of celebration began as a shambles though, as the venue’s ‘organisers’ had decided to bundle the thousands of punters, for the various venues at Kings Cross depot, into one gigantic queue that bottlenecked into single file entry. Though I am all for adequate searches, particularly after recent shootings in the area, this was atrociously arranged. Once inside Canvas, the party-vibe prevailed over this unpleasantness and the evening’s fun began.

Gilles Peterson played Latin-dipped nuggets in the Kings of Soul room. Old and new tracks featured, Raul Midon’s ‘Sunshine’, Bugz in the Attic’s ‘Sounds Like’, Hot8 with a Brass version of ‘Sexual Healing’, Aaron Jerome’s remix of Nicole Willis ‘Feeling Free’, Marlena Shaw’s ‘California Soul’, Simbad’s ‘Fever’ and The John Davis Monster Orchestra’s ‘Bourgie, Bourgie’. King of Good Times, Norman Jay took over the booth and continued the eclectic greatness. With his porkpie hat bopping up and down, Norman’s set included Dayton’s ‘Meet the Man’, Stevie Wonder’s ‘I Was Made To Love Her’, Recloose & Joe Dukie’s ‘Dust’, Luther Vandross’ dancefloor favourite ‘Shine’, Me’Shell Ndegeocello’s ‘I’m Diggin’ You (Like An Old Soul Record)’ and Paul Johnson’s ‘In your corner’.

Jazzy Jeff played to a rammed room, a sea of arms raised in the air. Sweat dripped from the ceiling, plopping onto unfortunate folks but the buoyant crowd bounced

Simultaneously in the Kings of Hip-Hop space, Jazzy Jeff played to a rammed room and a sea of arms raised in the air. Sweat dripped from the ceiling, plopping onto unfortunate folks, but the buoyant crowd bounced to tracks including Q-Tip’s ‘Breath & Stop’, Snoop’s ‘Gin n Juice’, Pharell & Jay-Z’s ‘I Just Wanna Love U’, Terror Squad’s ‘Lean Back’& the Beatnuts ‘Watch Out Now’. Rapidly playing hit after hit, Jazzy Jeff opted for technology rather than vinyl using digital scratching software (Serato Scratch Live, I think…). He certainly delighted and impressed the crowd, with a pal of mine Gavin from Birmingham describing it as, “amazing if you like hip hop, he played all the classics”.

Dimitri from Paris, dressed hyper-dapper in a tuxedo, hosted the Kings of House room, which was certainly the most colourful of the three rooms. With plenty of people shirtless, a man dressed as Superman (cape and all!) and another man dancing with large headphones plugged into nothing alongside the speakers (sensible perhaps…). Dimitri’s selections included a version of Ultra Nate’s ‘Free’ that had most of the room singing along and a splendid bass heavy working of Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s going On’.

BBE chose an excellent balance of sounds and DJs for the night, as one would expect from a label that has been releasing fine music since it’s beginnings. Congratualtions to Peter Adarkwah and the others at BBE who have done a great job keeping the label afloat and establishing themselves as a dynamic label that continues to release terrific music, including in 2006, Visioneers’ ‘Dirty Old Hip Hop’, Jay Dilla’s ‘The Shining’ & Vikter Duplaix’s ‘Stimulation’, as well as the latest ‘Kings of…’ compilation.

Photo of Jazzy Jeff by Ketch (Thanks)

Links: http://www.bbemusic.com/