Monday 31 March 2014

Fearless for Art...Jazmine Sullivan @ Koko, Camden

Last night Jazmine Sullivan  took to a London stage, for her first gig in almost 10 years, courtesy of Soulgigs. If you've been following twitter @thellondonista, you'll know I've been rather excited about this gig and with reason!

Opening the show from backstage at Koko, Jazmine had the audience screaming with anticipation as she sang 'Famous' with full band and 2 backing singers. 
The set also included popular favourites, 'Bust Your Windows', 'In Love with Another Man' and encore song, 'Need U bad'.  

There was also a rendition of Daft Punk and Pharrell's,' Get Lucky', after Jazmine admitted to being single and finding refuge and fun in music. She threw some shapes on stage with her backing singers and delivered vocal acrobatics to showcase an amazing range and a scatting ability to leave you with your mouth open. 



Atlantan Singer and Musician Marian Mereba (left) also introduced herself to London for the first time last night and her track, 'Go to London', implies it's clearly something she has always wanted to do. She has an incredible voice. She can throw in the odd rap à la Lauryn Hill,  she plays guitar and harmonica and she does a wonderful cover of Rihanna's Man Down. 

Other support artist Cleo Sol  blew everyone away with her smooth voice and her mixed heritage influences. Check out her soundcloud for free downloads.

In between artists, FriskyDJ and Milktray kept the audience educated with a history lesson of good ol' back in the day r'n'b. They took us back to a time of walkmans not ipods, Opal Fruit not Starburst and BT Phoneboxes with a 10p calling charge. 

But they soon turned comedians or you could say poets, describing one guy as wrapping himself around his girl 'like a roti'. They had people on the floor in stitches, as I'm sure they did when they played 'Candy'. Honestly, it should be illegal to play that jam in crowded multi-level venues. Let's just hope no one turned down the stairs. Doh!

Later on during her set, Jazmine Sullivan openly admitted that her time away had been related to issues of image and confidence, knocked by an abusive relationship, to which the audience shouted, 'F*** him!' and,'You look amazing!', which she did.  

Highlighting her feminine curves, she wore a black dress with cleavage on show, thigh high split and ankle strap skyscraper heels adorned with that big curly hair.

Her story, however, is a reminder of how much of herself she puts into her music, citing that she now appreciates that every part of her is a 'work of art' in new song, 'Masterpiece'. Watch out for it on the third album. Can't wait!!!!



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