There are performers with magnetic stage presence and then there is Raury, an 18-year-old from Atlanta, Georgia. A relentless fizzbomb of energy, he peacocks about the stage in an arm sleeve and farmer’s hat, and lunges into the microphone like he’s wearing a Spandex onesie. He excitedly gabs at the audience at length between songs and then sprays them with water. He stage-dives at least twice. “Can I get some turn up in here?” he bellows (which is new-fangled internetty speak for wanting the crowd to get rowdy, not a request for root vegetables) as he launches into tribal stomp The War. They don’t, this being London after all, but, then again, Raury has enough enthusiasm for everyone.
Unlike most other young black artists from Atlanta, Raury touches on hip-hop but sidesteps the city’s signature skittering trap beat for a more diverse grab-bag of sounds. He’s been called “genreless” and the male alternative to Lorde for his ability to pull from different styles – Bon Iver, OutKast and Kid Cudi, among them – and create new music that genuinely feels fresh and accessible. It’s conscious, too: Raury’s raps aren’t thuggish rhymes, they question faith, battle the powers that be and encourage his generation’s ability to believe in themselves – music “for the dreamers, the rebels and the underdogs”, he shouts from the stage. He’s only had one EP so far but already his music has caught the ear of Kanye West, who flew him to his studio to hang out earlier this year.
For Raury’s debut London headline show tonight, however, the folk, synth and soul subtleties in his music – see Cigarette Song, or his breakthrough Lumineers-meets-unhinged-gospel track God’s Whisper – are drowned out by his band’s blowtorching riffs. Chariots of Fire sounds like something heard on the Sunset Strip circa 1988. Seven Suns goes from being an astral soul jam about “ignorant youth” to more like Christian rock with a cheesy, Iron Maiden-rivalling solo. There is an apparently unironic cover of Bohemian Rhapsody. But, while he may not be a Freddie quite yet, you get the impression that you could give Raury any song and he’d perform the hell out of it. And if he’s as charismatic as this all the time, he’ll be one crowd-surf away from being a very big deal indeed.
