Its been a long time. According to it's been 14 years, and according to Sankey's flyers it's the first time that , of the groundbreaking hip-hop duo Gangstarr, visited the UK! They were all wrong:
he was on stage at the Academy with his partner in rhyme last year. But it has been a long time since I've seen a DJ take the stage and show such incredible passion for every track he plays, most of which are his own productions dating back as far as 12 years....
I was unsure exactly what to expect from his set. I hoped he would simply go through his endless catalogue of classic heavy "Boom-bap" drum beat style tracks that he has perfected over the years, and he did not disappoint.
Taking the stage in true hip-hop style; one hour late and puffing on a cigarette, he got straight to the point blazing out Nas' classic "New York state of mind". The track had an immediate effect on him, and he livened up instantly ripping through timeless classics like KRS ONE's ‘MCs act like they don't know' and ‘Black cop', chopping up to Ice Cube's ‘Jackin' for beats' and Biz Markie's ‘Nobody beats the Biz'. He even managed to squeeze in more modern Premier-produced classics like ‘Recognize' by the Lox, and Common's ‘6th Sense'.
However his vinyl shopping obviously didn't stop five years ago; he couldn't resist dropping Snoop's undeniably bouncy current single ‘Drop it like its hot', and blasting the Nas' ‘Thief's theme' much to the crowd's delight.
Despite the effortlessness of his mixes, Sankey's being Sankey's meant that his needles did on two occasions skate across the records mid-song, but it was all part of the fun as Premier claimed, "some records are so grimy that the needles can't handle it!" As shown when he dropped his last song; the grimy-anthem ‘Shook ones pt. II' by Mobb Deep. Nuff said!
[b]Words By:[/b] Chris Powell and Joe Kent
