By Melisa Tang

The Coronet , London - 18 February 2005

Having been a fan of Jin’s for a while now, I was excited to hear that he was coming over to the UK to play a couple of live dates, but there were two main concerns that crossed my mind. Firstly, the venue chosen for his date in the capital was the lesser-known Coronet in Elephant & Castle, (a venue that shows little sign of the ‘multi-million pound refurbishment’ they claim on their website). Secondly, for an artist who has only just released his debut album, and has yet to release a single, the launch of a full European tour was, in my view at least, a little ambitious. Nevertheless, I was confident that this show was going to be worth the 200-mile drive I was willing to make for the few hours of entertainment, as this battle MC has really been packing some heat in the last few months.

Taking our seats in the so-called ‘V.I.P.’ section upstairs, I watched as people very slowly trickled into the former cinema, and waited with bated breath to see what kind of show the Ruff Ryder’s emcee was going to put on. Two and a half hours later, and there was still no sign of Jin or his support acts, only a DJ who played the same tracks over and over again, and a lousy hype man who did just the opposite. It was close to midnight when there was some movement onstage; promoters handing out free Akon CDs - a bribe no less to bring people to the front. It was then announced that there was to be a dance off, with the Jump Off crew in the house to keep the crowd entertained. This appeared to kick-start the evening, with the first act, Messiah, hitting the stage immediately after, although the two male MCs didn’t really garner much support from the crowd. They were soon followed by Night Shift, another rap duo who, for some reason, had brought 10 of their homies onstage with them, (though this did nothing to improve their music). Dance off after dance off ensued, this time using people from the audience, but it was apparent to everyone that this was an attempt to stall the crowd until Jin arrived. However, several volunteers, once onstage, refused to dance, choosing instead to take a seat on the side and promptly invite all their friends up to join them. Their stubbornness to move kept delaying Jin’s entrance, and some had to be physically removed from the stage in order for the show to continue.

At three o’ clock, Jin finally hit the stage, much to everyone’s relief, launching himself into ‘Here Now’, a track that declares his presence in the rap game. His delivery was brash, and there was a certain arrogance in the way he paraded around the stage, getting the audience to “throw ya middle fingers up”. This was alright for a while, but after the first five minutes, it starts to wear pretty thin. Jin moved on to perform the tracks ‘C’mon’ and ‘Senorita’, at which point he invited some girls up on stage for yet another dance off! After practically drooling all over the stage, he began to do some freestyles, dropping decent rhymes over beats like Fabolous’ ‘Breathe’ and Talib Kweli’s ‘Get By’, although not quite showing the real damage that he can do to the mic. He went on to perform other cuts off his debut album ‘The Rest Is History’, including ‘Most of Y’all’, ‘The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly’ and the Kanye collab ‘I Got A Love’ (minus Mr West). Jin closed the show with the official single release, ‘Learn Chinese’, produced by Wyclef Jean, and as soon as the guitar-laden beat kicked in, the crowd went mad. The track has been on airwaves for the best part of the last four months, so it was no surprise when practically everyone in the Coronet began chanting along with the outlandish emcee.

The night ended on a high, and Jin was lucky that the night had not taken a turn for the worse in the six hours that he had kept people waiting. Personally, I felt disappointed that Jin hadn’t performed to his best; his show was merely average, falling well below my expectations. Overall, it was a night that wasn’t worth the £25 people had paid to get into the V.I.P. area, and quite frankly, one of those nights that you’d really rather forget!

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