Caroline Sullivan 

Big Brovaz

ICA, London
  
  


Big Brovaz are the six hip-poppers from Brixton whose yearning for "Bentleys, Gucci dresses and drop-top Kompressors" was all over the radio recently, in the guise of a rewritten version of My Favourite Things from The Sound of Music. The number-two hit put paid to the Brovaz' claims of urban coolness - not because of the materialism, obviously, but the use of a Julie Andrews song - but put them on the kid-pop map.

And that is where this onetime street-rap collective is likely to remain, love-objects of logo-happy tweenies who lust after the three burly brovaz and admire the three sleek sistaz. How they found themselves closing a week of under-advertised charity shows for Amnesty at a near-empty ICA is a mystery. But whatever they think about performing a glorified PA with no band or DJ they keep to themselves. One stage must look very like another, and by now they can probably walk through this perfunctory set - four singles plus one or two album tracks - in their sleep. The labour is evenly divided between the boys, who rap, and the girls, who sing.

This sparks a lively tension on OK, with the rappers prowling hungrily behind the indulgently smiling singers. During the jittery Nu-Flow, the tension spills over into a full-fledged courtship dance, which would have planted a few ideas in pre-pubescent minds, had any been present. On Favourite Things, lead vocals are shared, providing a showcase for Cherise Roberts's gravel-pit croon and Nadia Shepherd's operatic high notes. This renders the song as quite a little testimony to the joys of avarice. But what's this sheepish postscript from MC Flawless? "Just because you hear us singing about diamonds and rubies in that song, don't think when we were recording the album we had any of that fancy stuff," he says. Hmm - a bit late for Big Brovaz to be chasing credibility, but a not-terrible 30 minutes regardless.

 

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