I was at Blues Kitchen for tonight’s gig and it was upstairs which I’ve never been to before. I always enjoy a night in Blues Kitchen so I was excited to see what else it had to offer.
I walked upstairs to be met by an elegant room with tables for standing round and even a few seats just behind the dance floor.
As I came in the DJ was still spinning tunes and there was a decent amount of people in the room all swarmed around the stage – clearly excited for Jeru.
Jeru came on stage to a big cheer from the crowd and started spitting – he had every eye in the place on him. He was clearly a joker after asking for the house lights to be put on and then quickly asking to turn them off saying there’s a lot of fellas here. ‘2 rules when i rock the house – i’m only having fun when you guys are having fun, rule number 2 (after going i on tangent) just do what the fuck I say’
‘Everybody say hoooo’ started a great call and response with the audience whilst Jeru went into his next tune which was well received by the audience.
‘Last time I came to Manchester they used to call it gun-chester’ said Jeru whilst garnering a pretty big laugh from the audience. The next tune was from his new record and had such an exciting beat to it – it was very bass forward with Jeru rapping over just made into such a meaningful tune.
‘I’m letting you know I’m bringing the real hip hop back’ said Jeru, mentioning how he’s only been selling his latest record on vinyl and cd, using no streaming platforms.
An interesting take from Jeru mentioning how streaming platforms like Spotify don’t pay artists nearly enough and so us as the listeners should be supporting artists in other ways. Jeru then got everyone to put their fists in the air and started bopping them up and down, along to ‘Come Clean’ which played next.
The lyric that sprung out to me was ‘control the mic like Fidel Castro’ which I thought was a rather interesting lyric for a tune that came out in 1994. Regardless, this song garnered a great reaction from the audience with Jeru telling the crowd that he couldn’t hear us and then the audience started cheering louder and louder.
The next tune has a lot of call and response in it which seems to be a theme throughout this set. The crowd responded very well, joining in with whatever Jeru asked. The next tune Jeru said was made 30 years ago but it still had such an impact tonight, people were singing and dancing along to this quintessential hip hop tune.
Jeru then went into a spoken word rap without any backing music which silenced the room, everyone was just in awe of Jeru’s ability to rap as well as he did. The next tune had Jeru asking the audience to sing ‘hahahahahahah’ in a rhythmic way which was rather entertaining to hear.
He also kept replacing different locations or words with ‘Manchester’ in a lot of his songs which added a nice and personal sense to the tunes – considering they were coming from this fella from Brooklyn.
‘Oh no I think I hear gunshots’ Jeru said, which got the audience responding with gunshot-like sounds. Jeru then started rapping over a rather chill beat. ‘I’m 54 I’m not even out of breath’ said Jeru before a jazz tune started playing adding a different layer to the night. ‘Da Bichez’ started playing and everyone in the audience was clearly happy about this tune, singing and dancing along.
Jeru continued with the call and response during the next few tunes which all had the audience bopping their heads and shouting along. He did a great job at keeping the audience involved during his verses where he was spitting – people couldn’t help but look at him, to then be greeted by a huge cheer at the end of his songs.
The next tune had Jeru spitting even faster than before over a beat with some heavy drums in it. People in the audience were attempting to sing along but no one was a scratch on Jeru. ‘I do this because I love to do it’ he said, and you genuinely could tell that he was having so much fun being up there.
The next tune started playing and got a huge reaction from the audience, then it stopped and Jeru said ‘you don’t wanna hear that shit’ which got an even bigger reaction from the crowd. Jeru then split the crowd and asked the left, right and the middle to shout shouting different phrases – ‘hands up coz we dropping some shit hooooo’ which got the audience involved nicely before Jeru started rapping.
Jeru then spoke about how his merch hadn’t made it to the gig and that people would have to buy online. Then someone in the audience said they had a shirt and Jeru dapped him up and then realised this fella had been to see him in Glasgow at another show recently- it was a pretty wholesome moment between the two of them.
Jeru then asked if we wanted some more which was received very well by the crowd and a slow beat with some eclectic almost xylophone-esk motif was also playing whilst Jeru started spitting over it.
Jeru then closed his set with a monologue about why we should treat each other well and be kind to each other ‘How I’m living’ then started playing and got everyone in the crowd singing along. The last tune started playing which had a much lighter and upbeat feel to it, with Jeru rapping over the playful beat really bringing the night to a close. Everyone around was bopping and singing along to the chorus in admiration of the lyrical genius in front of us.
Tonight was a different night for myself, with hip-hop being a genre that I have not encountered an awful lot, but I still had such a fun night.
Jeru the Damaja really is a true showman, putting on one hell of a performance for us tonight. His fun and light hearted stage presence combined with his deep and meaningful lyrics made for an interesting night. Truly the ‘saviour of hip hip’, Jeru did himself proud tonight with a special set at Blues Kitchen.
WORDS BY CATH EVERITT
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