Dizzee Rascal
Leeds University Union
19-year-old Dylan Mills has achieved so much in the past 14 months - from scooping the Mercury Music Prize for his astounding debut Boy in da Corner to club, festival and TV appearances of ever-increasing stature, to last month's follow-up album, Showtime, that it comes as a shock to realise that this is actually his first proper UK tour.
He may have received a surprisingly healthy reception in the States, but some would argue that Dizzee faces a harder task in trying to take such an intensely symbiotic urban sound into the provinces of his homeland. Born and bred in the east London estates of Bow, Hackney and Tower Ham lets, the sound and culture of Grime is one firmly set in a world which, you would think, would be alien to the majority of the audience in Leeds University union.
If anyone can take the grimy underground overground, however, it's Dizzee. Showtime demonstrated clearly an expanding of horizons, both geographically and musically and, while it may be a bit much to claim that his sophomore record can do for him what A Grand Don't Come for Free did for the Streets, it certainly cements his position as the country's foremost MC.
Rising rapper Taz does an impressive job of warming up the crowd - a mixture of fresh-faced students and huddles of those who look more like students of the street, topped with a sprinkling of prime examples of thoroughbred west Yorkshire chavs. But tonight is all about the boy in the other corner. Arriving on stage to a rapturous reception, with only a behemoth of a DJ and a fellow back-up MC for comfort, the little Rascal at first perches on the DJ's riser, from where he spits out his first few rhymes. But if curious elements of the crowd need a crash course in Dizzee they soon get it, as he launches into the title track from his second album in trademark machine-gun a cappella. MTV once measured the speed of Dylan Mills's rapping and calculated he could rattle off 86 words in 15 seconds. Speed and skill such as that have to be seen to be believed, and when Mills scatter-guns 'Showtime' across the crowd, he's won them over. After a collective gasp of disbelief, they go suitably berserk and, from then on, they're pure believers. Don't let anyone tell you different - they get grime up north.
He might need more than a backdrop of his album's artwork visually when he steps up to larger venues, but tonight, Dizzee's pure energy and non-stop barrage of rhymes are more than enough to fill the venue, with even the most guilty of feet responding to the fractured rhythms.
All the big tracks from his debut go down a storm, from the breakthrough single 'I Luv U' to the ballsy nonchalance of 'Jus' a Rascal', to the incendiary 'Fix Up, Look Sharp'. He's not afraid to address the crowd between tracks, although 'Who's working class?' draws a more muted response than his request 'Let's see ya L's' , which prompts the crowd to raise their right thumbs and forefingers in an L-shape. 'The L's for London' he nods in appreciation, before adding 'and Leed...Leeds knows the score.'
He returns briefly for an encore of 'Stand Up Tall', his previous single, and as he raps 'Sounds of the young star Dizzee Rascal, don't give it half-hearted, give it all', it seems as if everyone is giving it at least that, with those down the front of the crowd almost pogoing as one. Dizzee new heights, indeed.
'How am I gonna pull this one off, man?' Mills asks self-mockingly in the intro to new single 'Dream'. You just did, kid.
Dizzee Rascal plays Norwich UEA, tonight; Bristol Academy, Tuesday; London Forum, Thursday
