The DMC UK Battle for UK Supremacy
Making its second appearance at the O2 Academy Islington, the DMC UK Final once again staged another dual busting event – The Battle for UK Supremacy and UK Final. We kick off with the Battle for Supremacy, 17 hopefuls which included our first and only female contestant in the competition. The most exciting round from the afternoon was the Cable vs Jeppa battle which without doubt, could have been a Semi or even Final round battle – it was just simply two great DJs going for it head to head, which Jeppa finally saw victory. Awesome. A magnificent eight are ready to battle in the evening’s Quarter finals and at this point, it’s still too early to predict a clear winner. The names are still randomly drawn in front of a clued up Academy audience that aren’t shy at all to show their appreciation to those that deserve it. The Semi Finals is a different story as the men are separated from the boys and the supreme four left, are simply matched from the order of their previous round victories.
Semi Finals Highlights
Rasp VS Asian Hawk. Rasp starts first and launches with Hip Hop classics, he cuts and scratches the title words of LL Cool J’s ‘Mama Said Knock You Out’ over the instrumental of Ice Cube’s ‘Wicked’ and although this is a quite simple piece it has the Academy crowd head nodding throughout and cheering out especially at the end as Rasp closes with another selection of verbal abuse. A calm and confident Asian Hawk replies with a simple but effective dis and also drops an 80’s classic ‘Part Time Lover’ from Soul legend Stevie Wonder as he performs a quite complex juggle with the opening rhythm bars, the groove is such a smooth one it clearly revels any disjointed extras applied which are just too obvious to be forgiven. The result? Rasp is the winner.
X-Rated VS Jeppa. X-Rated appears focused and opens up with a no nonsense dis followed by a funky unfamiliar groove, but it’s simple to understand his manipulations, again he drops another dis to finish which has been heard a few times throughout the night but still just as effective. A popular Jeppa goes straight into a juggle which is quite a rapid beat, dropping the expected chasing, back cuing and scratches, he surprisingly also drops a collection of body tricks which plays on the emotion of the crowd. Regardless of Jeppa’s popularity, a much more complete X-Rated is awarded victory.
The Final – X-Rated VS Rasp
X-Rated once again drops a funky groove laced with the vocals from the Godfather of Soul Mr James Brown. It’s a simple juggle and a tidy one. X-Rated performs perfectly but you can’t help feeling there should be something more. Rasp takes advantage of this as he performs a much more complex juggle which he shows total control, he finishes with a slaughter of scratches and back cues ‘You lose’ as he finishes. X-Rated opens up with a simple dis with the voice of Sylvester Stallone, again he drops another juggle which you can’t help but feel we’ve seen it all before. A confident Rasp clearly takes advantage in this last return as he drops a simple line from last year’s host Trip ‘Out of that and into this’, he then scratches over Daft Punk’s ‘Harder Better Faster Stronger’ and then manipulates the electric guitar with another, this is a well planed routine as it builds constantly. I must add Rasp’s stage presence is magnifying and maybe he knew he was only a few seconds away from being crowned Champ, he certainly was in charge on stage at that moment and he ended as a Champ should – fresh, wild, fly and bold. The result? Rasp is unanimously voted, officially, The 2009 UK Battle Supremacy Champ.
Cutmaster Swift
The DMC UK DJ Final
After a quick stage re-fit, the Islington Academy audience are next treated to it’s first guest PA. Legends in their own right, Jehst featuring Micall Parknsun & DJ Jazz T who step onto the stage and start spitting freestyle lyrics to the opening groove of Michael Jackson’s classic hit ‘Billie Jean’ being back cued in an endless loop by the hands of Jazz T. Jehst of course drops his own material as well as Micall dropping his new single which I can only assume from it’s chorus is titled ‘All For Hip Hop’ – this is a real Hip Hop showcase that’s a pleasure to witness, with a short beat juggle solo from Jazz T, the crowd and everyone in the Academy thoroughly enjoyed the first performance of the night.
The UK Final had 8 finalists and since there was only five UK heats this year, DMC being as gracious as they are ever, gave the following three, Special Guest, Disect and X-Rated a life line golden ticket entry which was based solely on the amount of times they have been placed within the top three ranks throughout their heats. Then followed the heat winners, Rasp, Asian Hawk, Jeppa, Furious P and Johnny 1 Move.
While the results were being totalled it was time for another PA, this time by our super new verbal host Inja who was also later joined on stage by a special guest – the mighty Skinny Man to perform the new release ‘Hat Low’ which is a real hard hitting head nodding anthem and watching these two lyricist spit flowing vocals between a catchy chorus is easily a youtube moment.
The Results
3rd Place Went to Johnny 1 Move who in my opinion was the most unlucky person on stage that evening. His needle appeared to have a mind of its own which is any DJ’s worst nightmare. Johnny never fully recovered even after a re-start, his set was easily worthy of the UK title and although Johnny smiled throughout I wonder if he really was smiling or was he really biting his teeth?
2nd Place Out of the resulting three, Furious P was the only one to perform a perfect set, packed full of technical manipulations on beats, synths or tones and of course an effective palette of scratches. The only chink in his armour in my opinion, would be the music familiarity of his content which tends to be a constant growing doubt amongst today’s DJs who do produce and compile their own vinyl to compete, but I can assure you this won’t be the last of Furious P.
1st Place Goes to a very shocked Jeppa who finally finds his way to the stage after a few Tony Prince callouts. I must admit his set wasn’t as tight as his London performance but still showed his potential. Dubstep is today’s UK youth music. Jeppa selected plenty of it and manipulated it by chasing and juggle techniques. Jeppa has good stage presence and occasionally visual gestures, which as I mentioned before, are equally important as all the technical scratching stuff. Once again my congrats to Jeppa who without doubt will be focusing on improving his skills as the UK entry into the DMC World Finals in September.
Finally we can’t end this review without mentioning another big highlight throughout this tour, the Shiftee (USA) vs Switch (UK) battle, this is a specially staged battle of two World Supremacy Champs without the round time restrictions and as I’ve mentioned before, this just keeps getting better! Up until now I can proudly say Switch had been kicking Shiftee’s ass but on this night, a very focused Shiftee planned a surprise attack that caught an off guard Switch – and excuse the pun, turned the tables. Victory was clearly Shiftee’s on the night and if that wasn’t enough, there was always the after party at the Elbow Rooms.
See you in September.
Cutmaster Swift
