As part of its 5th Birthday, Red Bull Studios in London have been putting on a number of events to celebrate all of the great work they have done within the UK music scene. On Tuesday [10th November], Red Bull Studios opened it’s doors for the ‘Raise The Bar’ event, allowing a selection of upcoming Grime MC’s to drop their best 16 bars on the mic over a specially made beat from Zdot Productions with the aim of appearing on a track and in a visual.
Registration started at 4pm and there were already 20 odd people there, all queuing up for their opportunity to take part. The building itself is brimming with history, with posters of past events and pictures scattered over the walls. As we got speaking to a few of the first few MCs up, they told us how excited they were about the building itself;
“Like Skepta has been in this studio and recorded a video here. I feel like I can channel Skepta when I get into the booth.”
In the reception, MC’s were a mixture of nervous and calm, all priming their best verses in their head as the beat that they were to spit on was played on loop out of speakers. There was a dope feeling of unity and encouragement in the air as the participants sat hyping each other up and praising each other’s contributions.
As the first MC enters, we retreated to the control room to sit with the sound engineers, cameramen and other RBS staff. From here, we watch around 20 MC’s take to the mic and deliver their best. The event was a great reflection of diversity within the grime genre with MCs, both young and old, male and female, taking to the mic and absolutely killing it. As each finishes, the staff in the control room gave a rapturous round of applause and you could tell that the experience meant so much to some of the MCs. One MC personally thanked the staff and said that even though he was nervous, he was glad he came and even stated that it was the “best moment of his life”. It’s clear that while the event had to happen, no one quite expected the response;
“It’s been crazy to hear how good people are and everyone is delivering. We have been planning this for months now but to actually see it happen is wicked.”
Because of large numbers, the sign up list eventually closed but everyone who signed up got their chance to shine. From being in the booth to being filmed and photographed, there was a real sense of opportunity and everyone there stepped up to the plate. Amongst the faces, we spotted Row-D [who battled XP at LOTM7] and Eyez, both looking to get a piece of the Zdot beat, and of course we got to meet a number of talented up and coming stars [word to BLK Face, Waltzz, Young Soul, Alpha Mac]. Overall, 46 MCs took part and left Zdot with the huge task of whittling it down to 5 [good luck with that!].
Words: Nathan Tuft – @Natz_AO
