Focus Wales ‘23 -Day Two
This is Day One for me, but as Focus Wales officially started on Wednesday I’m going to stick to the official line to avoid too much confusion for anyone here.
It feels great to be back up here in Wrexham. Over the years it’s started to become as familiar to me as other annual pilgrimage spots, such as Glastonbury or Notting Hill Carnival, a feeling of coming home almost. Sentimental stuff I know, but it’s true. Stick with me, even when I start to get like the friend who insists on showing you their holiday snaps of the same place they go every year.
We got here in the evening so this will be relatively brief and painless for all. I drove up with 4Dee who’s playing later today, if you read the blog regularly you’ll know about him by now I’m sure. As I couldn’t bear to admit to one of my hip hop peers that I only actually listen to BBC Radio Wales in the car, I’d brought a bunch of classic Welsh hip hop CDs for the ride. We had Fleapit, Squid Ninjaz, K-Diff Syndicate, Smithy Blade (Mighty Mouse to you younger lot) and the Toucan Club CD from around 1999 that includes the Potato Skinz and Quattro (a chance for another quick plug that Dregz from both groups is playing with Xenith here on Saturday).
We headed straight for Penny Black to catch Skunkadelic, a regular up here at Focus Wales, both as a solo artist and with his band Afro Cluster (playing tonight). Aside from a couple of his tracks I recognised with the current kings of funky hip hop beats, The Allergies, the rest of the set was largely made up of collaborations with Cardiff based producer Mr Substance who joined him on stage for the whole set, knocking up beautiful jazzy beats on his MPC. Honestly this is a release that needs to happen! They’ve apparently been working together for years but are yet to drop anything. The combination is perfect, and brought out (even) more of Skunkadelic’s soulful side. At one point he was singing like Gil Scott Heron in his prime. I’ve heard him sing before obviously, but still this time was extra impressive. If you’re at the conference and reading this in time, definitely do go and see Afro Cluster later, they’re an awesome live band and he’s a fantastic frontman with bags of energy. you can head straight over from my Kaptin Selects at Penny Black.
Minas might have stolen a few month’s rations of those energy bags mind you. I mean this is nothing new to anyone who has seen him before, he always seems to put his heart and soul, not to mention liver, guts and lungs into a performance. The first time I saw him at this same stage (Room 2 of Rocking Chair, previously Central) a couple of years ago I was blown away by the whole show. The production that sat somewhere between punk, metal and the wave of experimental producers that were clumsily classified as ‘post dubstep’ at the start of the last decade. All coming together to form something truly refreshing, creating a sonic safe haven for the outpouring of angst and frustration that so passionately pours out of him. Back then there was a modest but appreciative crowd, and now with a strong debut album and solid amount of shows behind him, he was a little nervous that it looked like it might be a similar turnout. He needn’t have worried, before the first tune was over the whole place was packed out. The crowd showing the amount of love Minas gets across different audiences, without compromising his sound one bit. Okay I don’t actually know that for sure, but it certainly feels that way. Next year I’d love to see him play the bigger room, or even a bigger venue and pack it out the same way. I’m pretty sure anyone that was there last night would be back with their friends in tow. I will be.
Kaptin Selects is at Penny Black this evening from 21:40 - hopefully see you there.
