DAPPY | LIVE REVIEW
Tramshed, Cardiff, Thurs 15 Jan
Dappy has always been a love-or-hate kind of artist. Targeted in the media for his array of silly hats and sillier behaviour, there’s always been a curious magnetism about him that’s often obscured by the jail sentences, nude ‘leaks’, and Celebrity Big Brother antics. Whether that allure comes from his rough-but-relatable lyricism or his story of career highs and personal lows, there’s talent in there somewhere. N-Dubz didn’t go platinum for nothing, after all. The first date of Dappy’s Levels tour is here to extinguish that flame of hope like a bucket of ice.
Things get off to an unpromising start when the man himself arrives on stage late, despite a gratuitous five support acts. A fight breaks out in the restless crowd before the set, followed by a much larger punchup at the end of the night that results in a fan being marched away in handcuffs. It would seem that Dappy’s regular Twitter preachings of love and fan community have not found their mark with all of his audience.
The show is only a mild improvement performance-wise. To his credit, Dappy doesn’t lean too heavily on his N-Dubz back catalogue for easy hits; we’re treated to short flashes of Girls and other 2011 era tunes, but for the most part the setlist is solo material. Not that he spends much time actually singing his hits, preferring to let the backing track or the excitable crowd do the heavy lifting.
It’s a frustrating experience, especially because when he does actually deliver, he’s not bad at all. Trill stands out for the simple reason that Dappy spits every bar rather than playing hypeman to his own recording. Spotlight and Bad Intentions could be great live tunes that showboat his diverse rapper-singer vocals, but are instead carried by an audience that fortunately knows all the words.
We’re also treated to spontaneous Dappy speeches that are as brilliant as they are rambling. Poignant quotes include “fuck the haters” and “all music makes the clitoris in your ear feel excited”. The Dappy hardcore fans will defend his nonsense to death, but for the rest of us, it’s entertaining for all the wrong reasons.
words and photos JASPER WILKINS