Billy Byrnes, Kilkenny Arts Festival
Kilkenny Arts Festival lived up to its reputation for diversity with a storming set from jazz meets hip-hop improvisers Mixtapes from the Underground at Billy Byrnes last Thursday night. Word of mouth about the Dublin collective has been percolating since they stole the show supporting pianist Robert Glasper in Dublin last November, and the hip Kilkenny crowd, which tellingly included many festival artists and volunteers, wasn’t disappointed.
Drummer Dennis Cassidy was the fulcrum, laying down rock-solid grooves, flavoured with funk, reggae, techno and even bossa nova, that over the two hours of their set, elicited ever more adventurous freestyling from the four MCs. Dublin rappers Ophelia and Lady Grew, singly and in superbly improvised duets, told it like it was, and even if it wasn’t always entirely clear what ‘it’ was, their passion and sheer nerve was infectious. Kilkenny’s Captain Moonlight delighted the locals with Now We’re Hurling and UK producer DJ Moschops injected some hard-edged politics with ragga overtones.
But it’s the interaction between the MCs and the band that really sets Mixtapes apart. Cassidy and his crew know exactly when to turn the screw, moving seamlessly from spacey interludes to floor-filling grooves that leave standard hip-hop backing tracks for dead. Guitarist Shane Latimer took care of the bottom end with bass lines that would have made Bootsy Collins proud, while Bill Blackmore’s ethereal trumpet and Daragh O’Kelly’s funky keyboards added a finely-honed jazz edge to proceedings, and DJ Rag Harry injected scratches and samples that drew imitative improv from the MCs. With common roots in a tradition that stretches all the way back to the gospel shouters of the American south, hip-hop and jazz make perfect bedfellows, and you can feel that tradition come alive when Mixtapes do their genre-busting, improvisational thing.
Mixtapes from the Underground appear at the Down with Jazz festival this weekend in Meeting House Square in Temple Bar, 7.30pm, Sat, August 25th
