Twice a year DJ Yoda plays an AV show in London and as a big fan they're a must-do. For those that aren't familiar with his style he's a former scratch DJ champion who has made the move from mixing sound to mixing visuals. His sets usually include a great mix of music (predominantly hip hop) and popular viral videos from YouTube. I find myself enjoying the visual clips more than the music some of the time, and the only other act I could ever consider saying that about is the Chemical Brothers show.
On this occasion the Soundcrash promoters had teamed up with Doctors Orders for a 7-hour night of hip hop and on this night only Yoda was going to be doing a one-hour hip hop classics audio-visual show.
When I got in the place was pretty quiet (I'm notorious for turning up early) and I don't know who the first DJ w but he was playing a good mix of tunes. Then former Scratch Pervert Mr. Thing played a solid set finishing with some anthems, and by the time he'd finished e crowd were warming up.
Next up was some strange looking DJ named Ewan Hoozami, decked in original b-boy track suit, fat gold chain and a Mohawk haircut. He was also playing dancehall sounds, which is always a little odd for a white guy, but the crowd were liking his music even if I wasn't feeling it (I was actually pretty ill was stubbornly attending because I didn't want to mope around at home).
Then he made way for the Yoda whose AV set wasn't as clever as normal instead playing homage to some great tunes via Yo MTV rap clips. There were some great verbal battle demonstrations from the likes of Biggy Smalls intermixed with well-mixed clips. A highlight was playing an excerpt of Kriss Kross with a Ludacris "Rest in Peace" sample in honour of the recent passing of one of its members. He also used the visual mixer to show the Pharcyde's "drop" video played in the normal direction. Towards the end of the set the cuts between tracks became shorter as Yoda tried to cram in as much material s he could in the short time he'd been given. Clearly 60 minutes was never going to be enough to give the subject matter the credit it deserved and I suspect Yoda's intent was to push for 90 minutes. I hope he gives this another go with a much longer set.
The next DJ up was the dude who DJ'd with A Tribe Called Quest. I saw Phife last year and was very disappointed, for me ATCQ was Q-Tip. I couldn't even remember the DJ at all so wasn't really interested in seeing him here and as he started his set playing tracks that had already been played several times previously and has he was using the mic to get the crowd going I decided that I wasn't really up for a block party at 2 in the morning and called it a night.
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