The Sheffield Scenester

Tonight was going to be a first for The Sheffield Scenester, we were asked to judge ‘Best band’ of the night. So armed with an ‘expert’ (our daughter), we ventured into a relatively unknown world. For a start we’re not really familiar with the world of Urban music and secondly we’ve never been asked to judge a competition before, luckily we were given a few pointers, basically to base our decision on the crowds response and to the actual onstage performance, the actual music was to be judged by someone else, so breathing a sigh of relief we sat back and prepared for the first act.

After being told there were a total of ten acts in the competition (as well as two guest acts that were exempt from the competition), most of the acts were teenagers....so rather than point out the highs and lows of everyone I’ll just mention what for us were the highlights of the evening. The second act of the night, M-Jay, had a good deal of support with him and managed to keep the pack of young girls screaming happily along as they sang their four songs, it did help when one of the singers gave away his necklace halfway through their set as the fans seemed to rush for it like it was the brides bouquet at a wedding.

The fourth act of the night, G Dott, began as a solo effort, but due to a few sound issues the crowd seemed to desert him. Now what made this act really stand out for us was the fact that he brought out his secret weapon in the shape of a young lad (Yung Bloc) who could rap with the best of them. This kid really knew how to talk to the crowd and for one so young (he didn’t look much older than 12 or 13)....we were rightly impressed, as he strutted up and down the stage in full flow to the newly gathered crowd. In our opinion if there was an award for best individual performance, he would of walked away with it, no competition!

Following this fell to a group called Tenda who opened with a cover of Tinie Tempah’s ‘Pass Out’, according to our daughter it was quite a good version, but the crowd seemed to just remain motionless. That was until after they had finished their set and suddenly all hell broke loose, the entire room was full of screaming girls and young boys trying to get a decent place to view the big central dance floor, now it was time for Ice. As our daughter proceeded to inform us, Ice were in the semi final of Britain’s Got Talent this year, which straight away explained the near hysterical pandemonium that had ensued just now! Unfortunately they did receive some negative heckling from a small minority...but we ignored that and just sat back and enjoyed a display of coordinated troupe dancing, which might have worked better with some proper lighting around it, but for the teenagers gathered round the floor it seemed hypnotising. This took us straight into the second half of the acts of the night and to kick us off this time was Jack West, oddly enough they had the largest crowd of the night...They did in fact have pretty good stage presence as they urged the crowd to join in, resulting in a fair degree of dancing and screaming. When it came to the third track of their set they called upon the services of a fellow singer, Demo, who I’m afraid to say didn’t really work with the crowd at hand, as they ended up just wandering off in dribs and drabs!

Demo was in fact the next act up exchanging lyrical insights with two backing artists the title of Demo & Jamma. Rather amusing to hear an urban street rap done with a Yorkshire accent but it didn’t really go down well with the mainly young teenage audience I’m afraid.

This was followed by another popular act, Tiger & Jezza B, as a large crowd swarmed to the stage eager to hear and see them. This was another dance orientated act and with much front of stage hand slapping with the fans, they did endear themselves to the crowd. They, like Jack West before them, actually looked like they enjoyed themselves on stage, coupled with the fact that the rapport between them was both spontaneous and energetic, making for an exciting set.

The penultimate act was Vex One, no stranger to us as we have reviewed a couple of his songs this year, but it was good to hear a song we knew at last. The difference with his performance though was that the crowd gathered round the main floor to watch a couple of street dancers happily doing their thing to Vex One’s music, it meant he was singing to an empty floor but he carried on regardless. These two kids then came up on stage and carried on their performance either side of the stage bringing the crowd with them, and stayed there while Vex One finished his set.

The final act was Jason Quainoo who in a total contrast to the night’s previous acts took a much more soulful approach to his songs. He also stood upon one of the dancing podiums overlooking the main floor instead of using the stage; this more subtle approach seemed to be wasted on the young crowd, which was a pity really since it was refreshing to hear a smoother softer vocal. At one point he dropped down and wandered around the dance floor still crooning away...without so much of dip in pitch was quite an achievement!

With all the acts out of the way a young girl called Siobhan Gallagher took to the main floor to belt out a couple of tunes, she did a good job as well, while we deliberated and conjugated over the evenings proceedings. Basing our decision on stage presence, crowd reaction and the interaction between the act and the crowd....we finally decided to award the honour of ‘Best Artist’ to Jack West. It also came as no surprise in the end that they also won ‘Most Ticket Sales’, judging from the size of the crowd supporting them, but the award for ‘Best Song’ went to M-Jay, one of the acts we considered in our category.

Definitely a fascinating night that turned out to be not only entertaining but quite good fun, with some of the artists needing to polish their acts....in fact several members looked almost shell shocked when stood on the main stage! Another thing I found interesting was that members of different acts would suddenly turn up in another acts line up...?! I suppose in effect giving themselves two chances of winning! Definitely an unusual night!

We also managed to speak to M-Jay...and this is what he said:

Sheffield Scenester: How does it feel to win this award?

M-Jay: To Be Honest Winning the award for *Best Song* was great it just shows how powerful the new single is, The single Releases 9th August so Make sure you Get your copies let’s make history.

Sheffield Scenester: How did you get involved with the urban spotlight?

M-Jay: I actually Heard About it from Ben who contacted me and asked if I wanted to be a part of this year's Urban Spotlight and so I thought it would be a great opportunity and the show was great the crowd showed me a lot of love and everyone enjoyed my single's so that was a great feeling.

Sheffield Scenester: Do you feel that you deserved to win?

M-Jay: To Be honest with you I didn't even know that awards where gonna be given at the end, I thought it was just a showcase to bring your best material and show the people what you got and so when my name got called for the award I was like Oh..! But yeah...I definitely felt like my performance had a lot of power and interaction, I mean everybody did there thing...but I feel like I deserved it.

Sheffield Scenester: Who else in your opinion played a good set?

M-Jay: I think everybody played a good set, some artist's just lacked the charisma and effort, I mean if you want to do this as a career and follow it you need to give everything you got every night, whether it's in the studio, writing the music and performing, some artist's got booed....which is a shame...but as an artist that shouldn't make you react negatively it should make you stronger.

Sheffield Scenester: Which musical artists are you influenced by?

M-Jay: There are 2 many to list, but I think a lot of US Artist's like J holiday, Trey songz, Lloyd, Jay z and many others have been a major influence to me....but I also respect Chipmunk, Tinchy, Dizzie and everybody moving the UK Forward right now we are at a beautiful stage...musically.

Sheffield Scenester: Anything happening in the future for us to look out for?

Look out for my 1st album single release on the 9th August...Look out for my album also coming end of this year, also shooting some video's and just finished some Major single's....so look out for them, featuring some of the UK's Best artist's, also just look out for me....I am going to be every were working hard and making sure people get to know me!

We would have liked to speak to Jack West too...but it was a shame we had difficulty contacting him...but keep a look out for his next gigs!

Words & Photos by Gail & Geoff Buckthorpe