On Wednesday night London witnessed history in the making as Kanye West, Big Sean, Skepta, JME, Vic Mensa, Novelist, Allan Kingdom, Meridian Dan and CyHi The Prynce took to the stage of Camden’s KoKo as equals sharing a platform. Sales, hype and pop stardom were thrown out of the window and everyone was placed on a level playing field for an hour and a half where Boy Better Know went back to back with G.O.O.D Music (plus a few friends on either side) and ‘That’s Not Me’ received the same reception as ‘Mercy’. The true power of hip-hop’s unity shone through in a way that was about saying rather than doing, and all aspersions of Brit Awards backing dancers can now be disposed of.
We caught up with Big Sean in the aftermath to discuss the surprise show and find out how everything went down.
Let’s talk about last night. It felt like a historic moment…
It was just straight raw right?
I think that the way you guys were all integrated was what really made it for me, it wasn’t like anyone was supporting anybody.
I thought that was a whole new concept. I loved that, it was like Kanye West mixed with Kanye West.
How did it all come about?
[On Monday] when I got to London I hit up Kanye and he was like ‘Yo man, you’re in town? We should do a show!’ I was like ‘A show?’ He was like ‘Yeah we should just do one tomorrow, we should just announce it tomorrow and do it tomorrow.’ I was like ‘Cool!’ I thought he was just half serious, I didn’t know if it was really going to happen. And I didn’t hear anything when I went to sleep that night, so i was like ‘It’s for sure not happening’. Then I woke up and he was like ‘Yo, so the show is going to be tonight.’ And I was like ‘Oh shit!’ It was a surprise thing, they just put the ticket link up, Kanye retweeted it and it sold out in five minutes. It was crazy.