DELS at XOYO

Hip-hop show at the XOYO in the cool part of town? Sure. Islington is kind of like a cleaner Williamsburg with a more concentrated dose of beards and Nike high-tops than the rest of London. It's the North to Eastern part of the city and where you want to hang out if you're not trying to chat with dudes in ties. The only problem here for a hip-hop show is that your black contingent goes way down. Like all the way down.

The place has a cool artist's gallery upstairs and a music venue down the steps where large concrete pillars hold up an old ceiling and a decent stage slowly attracts the shy hipsters. As bad fortune would have it this time, I arrive early enough for the opening acts. The first band has an awesome chick drummer and a keyboard player front woman who does her best to pipe out high melodies with little success. Oh well, first band and it happens, we'll move to the next, bigger and better, right? No and I really can't put into words how much weight the word "no" has right now. One guy, black shirt buttoned to the top, gold necklace, swooped hair and a voice that only a (deaf) mother could love. He's pumping out decent loops from his keyboard, but his voice and songwriting resemble what Chis Martin's might had he been dropped from the top floor of the hospital at birth. So...

DELS. Dude, don't let me down after this seemingly never-ending and collective eye roll. Yeah, everyone's doing it. He quietly enters with a hot chick on the keyboards and another hot chick on the bass/keyboards. Drummer's good, music's cool, we're doing well. Kieren Dickins, as he was first called, is a normal and good looking guy from Ipswich who's carrying a wee bit of animation, but is relatively reserved for a rapper with a load of boring white kids on his hands. I always laugh at rappers with English accents (especially ones with tambourines). I don't why it's funny. What makes him unique is his electronic Atari music, his babes, and his bizarre and kind of nerdy lyrics. When he gets into the part about cloud eating, I start the eye roll again, but then realize that's just what this guy does. He watches Star Wars, eats Fruity Pebbles and rhymes about morphing into cars and grass. If you watch his videos, you'll realize he's just kind of a dork. And that's cool with me. On his first full-length album, Gobs, he has a few standout tracks worth a listen. If you're going to a live show, skip the openers.


He still pees on the sheets.

DELS // Trumpalump (feat. Joe Goddard)