MIST

MIST has come a very long way in a remarkably short space of time. Only emerging during 2015, his latest video is less than two months old and has already garnered well over 6 million YouTube views. His ep Diamond In The Dirt entered the top 40 album chart at number 4 recently, so this felt like the perfect time to go see him on his biggest tour yet. First though I had to negotiate the tedium of that curiously modern phenomenon – the queue into the venue. Funny how in the good old days of paper tickets there was never a queue, now it seems to take an age just to get inside – that’s progress I guess. As a consequence I missed Beeks, who was just finishing his 10 minute (wtf?) slot when I finally got in. D Knowledge and K2 & Tana also played very brief sets and built an atmosphere without making too much of an impression. The DJ did his job well though, dropping plenty of the current crop of bangers. The crowd were predominantly male, obviously young, boys not yet men, with all the posturing that goes along with that, although you could visibly see the attitude disappearing as everyone concentrated on having fun.

MIST began his set shortly after 9 with an amusing weed based intro video, and he had in tow none other than producer extraordinaire Steel Banglez, the man behind his music and a ‘name’ in his own right. There’s many things I like about MIST – the fact that he’s from Birmingham automatically makes him stand out from what is mostly a London-centric genre, he tries to make his music videos a little different, he comes across well in interviews and he hasn’t jumped onto the grime bandwagon, sticking resolutely to his UK rap guns. Strangely though over the course of 45 minutes I never really felt like I was seeing him showing off his undoubted talents. Banglez played the backing track, the actual song with MIST’s voice on it, while over the top of it, MIST joined in, usually accompanied by Banglez. It made for an oddly disconnected experience, like a glorified karaoke night. J Hus did the same thing when I saw him last year, yet MIST has done a number of freestlyes online showcasing his genuine skills as a rapper, so this felt like a wasted opportunity. That’s not to say that it wasn’t enjoyable – the crowd were hyped, the bass was loud, the mosh pit intense at times but it never really felt like anything other than a club set, rather than a proper show. MIST is quite a low key performer too, so it often lacked the energy of other similar shows I’ve been to, and as a consequence at times it did feel a bit flat. Shame.