Nas & Kano @Birmingham Academy

Bloody hell... after almost a year's wait since the original Street Disciples Tour was cancelled, the Greatest Living MC blessed sunny Brum with a banger of a nite!!
After a sizeable queue (nothing compared to Fabric) and a ticket scare, me+Maxwell stepped into the Academy to be greeted by Kano (with Demon+Ghetto in tow) smacking up Ps & Qs! Not only was it a total surprise to have my favourite MC of the moment supporting, but with such a clueless-to-grime crowd repping, we made sure we brought bare noise and vibes!! Birmingham needed to be educated... London stand up tall! The boyz killed it, rollin' thru Typical Me, Gangsta Toys & Mic Check 1-2 ("...fuck u!") among others. Wot a warm up?! He's gonna tear Brixton to pieces when the show hits LDN Saturday. Seanie B (1Xtra's Dancehall DJ) then stepped up and got the crowd proper lively with a heavy hip hop set covering the whole board.

Its a good thing it was Nas next, cos i dont thing many people coulda topped that warm up, serious! It all kicked off when he eventually graced the stage, taking over with the presence of a true legend. He absolutely pounded the tunes nonstop, from his classic Illmatic (Half-Time, Life's A Bitch etc) through to his latest Street Disciple album (Bridging the Gap, Thief's Theme etc) with EVERYTHiNG in between... Including bare mixtape and pre-Illmatic gems, If I Ruled the World, Got Urself A Gun, Get Down, Ether (JayZ diss) and a preview of his 50Cent diss tune (fool is gonna get murked). It made u really realise wot makes this lyricist so legendary...his arsenal of big+quality tunes is so vast that he could have gone on all nite. Heavy artillery. Unfortunately it all seemed to be over in a flash, and perhaps a tad short, but all was forgiven when he came back for the encore...Made U Look (PoW!!!). Absolutely tore it to shreds with that track, gunfingers everywhere! Sick.

An absolute blinder of an evening capped off (pun intended) in style. Shame no 'I Can' tho, but who's complaining?!! A truly inspirational night from two of the best in the game (Nas/Kano) , at totally different levels, in different games, on different continents...but a lot of food for lyrical thought. I think i got the munchies...