BIG BOI @ Heaven, London

0 Saturday July 2 2011 Written by flyprints
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Last week we went down to Heaven, located under The Arches in Charing Cross, to witness one half of Outkast, formally known as Big Boi perform prior to his Glastonbury set.

Heaven is an up and coming live music venue with a capacity of just over 1500. The venue had numerous rooms, but the performances took place in the largest of them which had an average sized stage for the venue size located at the front and the DJ booth located on a raised level. I enjoyed the venue, it felt intimate yet allowed enough people to feel a good atmosphere.

Big Boi was supported by Emily Rawson on the 1s and 2s who initially warmed the crowd up with some Hip-Hop tunes. She was then followed on stage by Yasmin who performed a few songs including her latest single “On My Own”. The track that I enjoyed the most was her cover of ‘Touch Me‘ which was produced by Jamie XX The track sounded great with its steal pan influence and heavy baseline. I’ve never been convinced by Yasmin’s vocals previously, but on this night the girl did good and my opinion was laid to rest.

After a short wait following Yasmin, Big Boi’s DJ entered the stage and presented us with a video montage on Big Boi’s various videos. Big Boi soon followed and proceeded to play through a good majority of his back catalogue as well as his more recent tracks from Sir Lucious Left Foot.

His set list really reminded the audience that Big Boi has had hit after hit. He showered us with classics such as “So Fresh, So Clean”, “B.O.B” and after asking the audience what they wanted to hear “Ms Jackson”. He created a great energy within the audience, everyone was bumping, waving their hands and really getting down.

He had great stage presence and when he wasn’t laying down his bars he was having fun dancing around the stage. I always enjoy it when I see a rapper engaging the audience by doing more than just standing and spitting, it’s an easy trap that most emcee’s fall into. I’m not saying that I want to see them rolly pollying across the stage, or juggling fire batons but they have to remember that the crowd came to SEE a show and so visuals are just as important as vocals at live gigs. Big Boi surely showed his understanding of the rap game and live shows with his performance, let us not forget, he has been doing this since the 90′s (where it seems his swag was left)!

He went on to invite all the “pretty girls” on stage whilst he played the classic from his Speakerboxxx release “The Way You Move”. I’m not sure there was any quality control on what was defined as “pretty girls” and was more along the lines of, any chick who is willing to come on stage and dance infront of 1500 people, come up now. It provided some amusing entertainment as the girls either awkwardly huddled at the back after releasing how many people were watching them, or confidently shook what their mama gave them in the hope of grabbing Big Boi’s (or indeed anyone who was watching) attention. My favorite part was watching them all awkwardly leave the stage after they realised they didn’t matter anymore. But everyone deserves their 3 and a half minutes of fame right?

Overall I was in fact surprised at what a good show it was, he out did my expectations by playing all the classics starting way back in the 90s as well as entertaining the new wave of Sir Lucious Left Foot fans. His stage presence was on point and we left feeling like we had been thoroughly entertained!