Focus Wales ‘23 -Day Three
This was a long day, but I'm going to keep the post super brief and limited to just a handful of recommendations rather than an all singing and dancing review. Partly as I know those who are at the conference may be struggling slightly with their concentration after long days and extended liquid lunch meetings. But also because I have a much bigger and more important post brewing and don't want any readers to get Focus fatigue.
After a morning being fired up by the Music Venues Trust and Power Up, both of whom I will touch on in their own posts and other posts in future. I headed out, not to see my favourite artists such as Squid, Neue Grafik Ensemble and Mauvey, but to get a reasonable snapshot of where the MOBO scene is currently here in Wales. My thoughts on that will be part of the bigger post I mentioned, but certainly I saw a bunch of music I enjoyed and the vibes were great throughout, even the few times when the shows weren't massively attended.
The strongest performances came from: Afro Cluster, but that should be no surprise, as they're one of the best live bands in the country. It was incredibly hot, sweaty and late so I never got the full experience this time but they definitely delivered and a packed out Rocking Chair was in full appreciation mode; Sage Todz as always showed way more presence and competence on stage than his brief career so far should allow for. The crowd felt a little subdued at times but then after each track they burst into possibly the biggest applause I've seen for an artist so far. It was great to see a lot of younger and almost certainly local people out for this one too; although there was no doubt who was favourite for that generation, Juice Menace held court in Penny Black for anyone half my age and younger who weren't mostly into guitar bands. Many of her peers from the scene were there also, as well as any rappers from my generation. Half the crowd knew the words to hits like No Chaser, which she performed twice after the crowd demanded an encore. It's the first time I've seen her live and I was impressed. She was all business, full of focus but made shelling a crowd look effortless. There's no denying her skill in both flows and lyrics is deadly and she has the music to back that up.
My ‘non Welsh’ highlight was a Canadian group from Vancouver called Naduh. I’d met them briefly the night before when their car got stuck in the multi story car park and I’d given a few of them a lift back to their hotel. Catching them meant missing one of my favourite acts of the weekend, Mauvey, but turns out he actually drove the rest of the group back that night and he suggested I go and see them instead. Incidentally for my South Wales crew, both are playing together at Le Pub in Newport on Wednesday 24th May. The group draw on classic 90s and 2000s rnb groups and modern rap artists with maybe a touch of the Spice Girls. Offering up solid harmonies, synchronised stage routines and sharp lyrics around both personal and sexual empowerment. It was only really the sound that let them down, which has been an issue at a few sets over the weekend. With similar problems at The Great Escape, I wonder if the quickfire, super packed conference model is always fair on the artists, who often appear at their own expense in the hope of delivering a great show to delegates. That’s certainly not laying blame on the event or the sound technicians, just food for thought perhaps.
From the crop of younger up and coming MOBO artists, Jimbo had a great energy, with plenty of heart and genuinely emotional lyrics, heavy with grief and frustration, which could loosely be put under Road Rap, though this was an artist offering frontline reportage rather than life as an active participant. He was happy to be playing to a full room rather than his garden shed for once and that kind of earnest humility is something that connected all of these artists. A lot of people would argue that cultivating an artist ego is more conducive to a career as a musician, but it certainly makes for a better atmosphere to be around when that isn’t the case.
Aisha Kigs is another rnb act you need to keep an eye on. Real heart warming and uplifting vibes delivered in a rich and soulful voice, which when being pushed sounded like a cross between Erykah Bady and Blu Cantrell, though a lot of the songs were delivered in a more gentle and measured way. She definitely raised the temperature of the place a few degrees and even when she was singing about heartache, you couldn’t help but nod your head and smile knowingly. I’m looking forward to how she goes down with Xenith at Ty Pawb tonight.
I also really enjoyed rapper Noah Bouchard, despite his own admission that he played "songs that are very sad cos I'm a very sad man". He’s the kind of clean cut rapper that you wouldn’t mind too much if your daughter brought him home for dinner, think Loyle Carner or Harvey Gunn and Frankie Stew. The songs weren’t all sad, though definitely in the emotional ‘rapping as therapy’ category, that’s certainly no bad thing of course. I’m not sure if he played my favourite track Wages (which also features Razkid and Jayahhadadream, neither of whom were in town) as after realising I was in the wrong venue, ran over the rode to catch the last track for ManLikeVision - who is definitely up there with the cream of the younger crop.
Special shout out to the Scottish acts I saw, brought down by Pitch - which looks like a great showcase up there for hip hop artists. I’m planning to be there this year. There was Queen Of Harps who has been shortlisted for BBC Scotland Artist Of The Year, she certainly showed a lot of promise, although I was a little disappointed there was no harp in tow! I really liked MC Salum from Dundee who is signed to Big Indie and was also DJing for Naduh. He had bags of character, and the tunes I caught were great, ranging from low-fi garage to what I can only describe as emotional hip house.
I promised to keep this brief, and this is a far cry from everything I originally wanted to write, but it doesn’t leave me much space to review my own showcase, perhaps that’s for the best as I can be anything but biased but everyone delivered! Unity, Samhain and Ostara Days was something of a gamble as they had very little recorded material but that’s a really exciting project, and a perfect soundtrack to a lunar eclipse. Mercy Rose owned the stage with their stoned summer soul music and irreverent sass for days.
Finally 4Dee stepped up to the stage, he’d played a great set earlier despite terrible tech problems, and although this show wasn’t perfect in that respect, the speakers could handle 4Dee’s bass weighty production a lot better and his gruff Cardiff raps sounded a lot clearer. I think I’ll leave the final word on the night to Rosa from Naduhwho said, “This is the reason I leave Canada, to see things like this!” We are definitely doing something right over here in Wales.
