Hip-hop is undergoing a regional renaissance. Where once New York was the spiritual stronghold, contemporary rap music is geographically displaced across the east and west coasts. Lately, it's the southern states that hold sonic sway. The label Def Jam has opened an Atlanta-based boutique label, Def Jam South; its first signing was 26-year-old Atlanta rapper Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, who has since sold some 8m records. Ludacris in turn signed Chingy, 19, who supports him at this NME awards show.

The teenager chugs enthusiastically enough through the bouncing rhythms of Right Thurr and Holidae In, but he is no match for the unbridled energy of Ludacris, who takes on Brixton Academy like a man possessed. "Y'all ain't loud enough," Ludacris hollers before ordering the immediately obedient crowd to "throw them 'bows" - Southern speak for general mayhem-making.

Since he dispenses with such typical live fare as, say, a band, it's fortunate that Ludacris has the stage presence to cut it with the hip-hop minimum: one DJ, two turntables and a microphone. Bathed in red light, he looks demonic, roaring the tongue-twisting rhymes to the snarling beats and rasping guitars of Southern Hospitality and Ho. Not that you can hear much of the raucous music beneath his explosions of energy. He thunders through the mind-bending metaphors of Stand Up and the lascivious yet puerile lyrics to Area Codes, but he does so with such verbal dexterity that each word is enunciated - a feat that not many rappers, except perhaps Busta Rhymes, are able to achieve live. By the time Ludacris leaves the stage with the rabble-rousing Move Bitch, Brixton is electrified.