Jazz Café, Camden
“I finally made it through.”
For one of the most unorthodox Monday evenings, the NYC rapper at long last arrived at the doors of Camden - but not before a grumbling cauldron of tension and anxiousness sputtered amongst the audience.
A prolonged chorus of boos resonate against the darkened four corners of Camden’s Jazz Café. Beyond the hour of 11 o’clock on this Monday evening, a growing frustration rises amongst the crowd - incandescent at the absence of New York City’s rap star, Conway the Machine. In spite of vested efforts to procrastinate and stall with a litany of rappers, Conway’s surging anticipation swells with a surfacing frustration: a tangible anxiousness; audible booing; punches thrown within the crowd.
At long last, skirmishes arise at the stage’s entrance as the rapper gingerly arrives with cane in hand to a cauldron of conflicting emotions. The rapper defiantly abates the tension, like Ali post-fight (“I finally made it through!”) and a rushed deep dive is initiated into the East Coast-inflected world of hip-hop: vintage soulful sampling, down-trodden tempos, booming 808s; backdropped by the retelling of street life’s violent nature. ‘Brick Fare’, ‘Stab Out’ and ‘John Woo Flick’ reside reminiscent backdrops painted by the stoic likes of Nas on Illmatic or Biggie's Ready to Die, cruising with break-neck speed against the everyday violence and trauma amongst their surroundings (“Don’t you throw no fists, that’ll only get you some broke bones quick”).
Eventually regaining the crowd’s trust, the rapper effortlessly flits through a myriad of albums, EPs and features from an illustrious tenure over the past decade: “I could do this shit all night”, Conway exclaims at one point. Grounded in an ultra-machismo, masculine-affronted veneer, the rapper ultimately stands out as one of the more prescient in recent days (reminiscent of Tupac; P. Diddy; Freddie Gibbs) culminating with an emotional rendition of (half-brother) Westside Gunn’s track ‘The Cow’. Recounting his prison sentence and shooting incident of the past, Conway preaches retribution with conviction and an emotional temerity is reciprocated from the crowd who whoop and holler to every word with supportive fervour.
Whilst the hackneyed ‘Family Ties’ enlists Conway the Machine for an unmemorable encore, what remains indelible from this night is the rapper’s vindication from the brink of despair. In an unorthodox tale of events, this Monday night provides a comeback story for the ages: a rapper who persisted, never gave up and came out fighting when things seemed dire - ultimately winning over the Camden crowd against the (apparent) custom authorities who attempted to hold him back.
6/10
Conway the Machine's latest solo LP, Won't He Do It, is out now via Drumwork Music Group / Empire and can be found below.
Photo is courtesy of Dave Burke whose work can be found here.
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