Oddisee

A rare chance to see an unusual, indeed exceptional hip hop artist at work. Oddisee has always ploughed his own furrow – making his own music for the last 20 years and running his own label now, avoiding the temptations of big-money promoters, organising his own promotion and tours. He merges elements of jazz, funk, and go-go into his production, and his lyrics eschew the easy clichés and repetition of so many hip hop artists these days in favour of an articulate, lyrical approach. “We hear of people like Mark Twain and Edgar Allan Poe being great American authors and writers,” he says. “But what we love about them is being displayed in rap times ten: double entendres, metaphors, similes, plays on words, the ability to use poetic devices. These are all standard mechanisms to create beautiful literature and poetry, which are executed on an Olympic level in rap music.”

Our feature on Oddisee is here.

Oddisee will be performing with DJ Unown. The support act is Jindi, probably the closest homegrown equivalent to Oddisee — there are stories in his songs, melodies that mix genres from funk to dancehall via Afrobeat. We’ll be getting pieces from his brand new album, Reign & Fire (released 23 May). The warm-up sets come from the everr-reliable Big Hass and DJ Katt, known for his high-energy Afrobeat-and-house-music sets.