Jazz Café
01/02/06
When you go to a Killa Kela show, you know you’re in for a treat. The beatboxer extraordinaire was on form at this Camden show which was played out in front of a sold out crowd, including Madness front man Suggs, who seemed to be enjoying himself throughout.
After a couple of opening numbers, Kela brought out the crowd pleasing beatbox and after the crowd were hyped enough, he brought out his backing group, Spit Kingdom, and introduced the small orchestra to his left, which included some very pronounced and effective violin players. A smooth rendition of Rave Of The Future followed by Supergrass showcased Kela’s talent as a singer rather than just be known as a beatboxer.
The Spit Kingdom’s vocalists both came into the fore throughout certain songs, MC Trip hyping the main man to good effect and the female vocals were especially good when Kela was providing a vocal rendition of track’s percussion. Standing In The Rain was a definite crowd pleaser with a nice reggae vibe bouncing along as the crowd got increasingly into the sung stuff, but it was what followed that really made the show a belter.
Kela started off by battling the drums on the stage, mimicking and improving on what the real kit was playing, and then broke out some human scratching. After Secrets, the first single from his album Elocution, the real beatboxing extravaganza came out. So sure was Kela of the greatness of this part of the show, he told people to get out their mobiles and record the whole thing! Mixed in with double time drums and feeding off shouts from MC Trip to do snares, then bass, then kicks, the reloads, were renditions of Kelis’ Milkshake, J-Lo, Jay Z, Kanye West and Snoop before Trip reeled off his own little spiel which included the golden line “I’ve got more rhymes than Kate Moss has had lines”.
The set finished with Jawbreaker which built up a bassy beat before finally exploding into a Drum n Bass backing as everyone on the stage got hyped and this passed out onto the crowd, all of whom were bouncing along quickly to the beat. This was a great ending to a good set, but it was a little disappointing that the set only lasted about 35 minutes, especially since there had been no support on the night. Still, Kela certainly has talent, an abnormally high voiced talent, but a talent nonetheless.
You know the drill, go to www.killakela.com for all the official jazzmatazz.