Following an album signing for the release of new project ‘Grime MC‘, artist JME took the stage at London’s Rough Trade East. I wouldn’t describe what followed as being a traditional ‘gig’. It felt as though the audience were lucky enough to sort of hang out with JME; as he joked around, exchanging raps with friends, interacting with the crowd, all whilst rapping tracks from throughout his career, in what would be an incredible show.

JME, a staple of the London Grime scene, started the show alone with just his DJ and began to rap some of his biggest hits over what he described as ‘beats that didn’t make the album‘. Whilst it’s nice to hear a track performed in a live setting identically to how it sounds on record, this whole experience was so much more unique, as JME blended different verses from tracks spanning back over the past 15 years over random throwaway beats.

As well as the big hits from his last album ‘Integrity>‘, JME performed verses from 2005’s ‘Staggering‘, 2006’s ‘R U Dumb‘, 2010’s ‘Blam!‘ and so many more different verses from guest appearances to singles over the years. Each verse was rapped with the same energy and excitement, which only increased when he invited his friends to join him on stage.

The ‘gig’ shortly felt more like we were watching a group of mates just enjoying themselves: exchanging bars and hyping each other up. JME still rapped some of his iconic verses, now with a stage full of hype men, but he also stood back and let his BBK friends like Jammer rap some of their well known bars.

After 30 minutes or so, JME said he had to run, praising the crowd for waiting out in the cold and affirming “this won’t be the last of us, there’s more to come’. The crowd were definitely left wanting more of the high-energy set, but JME came back on stage only to tease the crowd saying to a fan, “You got this on video, JME got booed off stage, everyone boo” before urging the crowd to boo him as he half-heartedly rapped Serious one final time.

Whilst I’d still love to see JME in a more traditional gig setting in the future, this was easily just an amazing of an experience and one that won’t be forgotten any time soon.