As
he's the figurehead of Nigerian Afrobeats, it feels appropriate that D'Banj's debut UK headline
show takes place on the final day of the Notting Hill carnival. Alongside the
usual dancehall and soca, a good proportion of the anthems that fuelled this
year's sound systems and floats are the hits that have propelled the rise of
Afrobeats in the UK: Atumpan's The Thing, Ice Prince's Oleku and, of course,
D'Banj's own Oliver Twist, a song of such popular reach that it even made it on
to EastEnders.
Keeping
that carnival spirit going is D'Banj's MO tonight, as is that of a
significant proportion of the audience, who have hotfooted it down the road
from the carnival. As an entertainer, D'Banj treads the line between suave and
rambunctious with ease: his dapper yellow-lapelled blazer is swiftly shed as he
starts to rival his own dancers in snake-hipped, low-grinding ability, and the
gold chain follows as he plunges off stage for a spot of crowd-surfing. By
the show's climax, D'Banj is half-naked and essaying moves that seem
to refer mostly to the title of his forthcoming album, Mr Endowed.
After
a late entrance compounded by technical difficulties leaves the crowd slightly
restless, D'Banj may feel putting that level of work in is necessary – but
it transpires that the music does the trick just as well. "This is not a
fluke," he announces midway through the show, perhaps mindful that not
everyone present is aware of his seven-year career before Oliver Twist.
Tonight, though, his older material goes down almost as well, from the
call-and-response of Why Me to the lovelorn Scapegoat, and D'Banj bridges
the gap between his more lilting, organic songs and his recent tougher,
trancier dance-floor anthems with ease. His between-song patter has a tendency
to ramble, but the show's culmination in Oliver Twist is stellar proof
that an international hit can be engineered with ease if based
around a resonant, inarguable statement such as "I like Beyoncé".
Reference: guardian.co.uk
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