Streetlife Radio | The sound of waltham forest

Urban Classic was one of the latest free Big 6 event's hosted by Waltham Forest Council to help residents celebrate the Olympic year, and Thursday the 5^th of July saw the gathering of more than 9000 local residents come together to celebrate what was an impressive night of ‘Urban Music’. Assisted by the 85 piece BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jules Buckley.

Waltham Forest town hall saw the likes of Fazer (N Dubz), Ms Dynamite, Skepta and Devlin plus a few special guests take to the stage to put on what was a phenomenal show.

Jazzie Zonzolo (Anuva hood) got the crowd ready, skanking out to some big tunes, getting them ready for the evening. The event was well attended by all ages and demographics all coming together to appreciate one thing, the music. For some it was an introduction to a classical band, grime or live music. What seemed like an odd pairing of grime and classical, somehow merge together and worked.

Trained pianist/rapper/producer, Fazer (N Dubz), took to the stage, donned in a deep red velour blazer, bow tie and shades, kicked off the night. The platinum selling, Mobo award winning artist showed us his skills behind the grand piano before finishing up in front of the audience,(mainly legions of screaming girls) with the mic in hand.

Ms Dynamite hyped up the crowd with tracks like 'Boo', 'Dy-na-mi-tee' and the Labrinth produced single 'Neva Soft'. She brought pure energy and charm to the stage, and in true dancehall fashion pulling up the tracks ever so often.

East London's Devlin, in casual form graced the stage dropping tracks like '64 bars' and 'London City'. The highlight of the show had to be when he brought out the first mystery guest, pop sensation, Ed Sheeran, to perform new single 'Watch Tower'. At that point the crowd went crazy as his presence was unsuspected.

Grime MC Skepta, rocked the stage with tracks such as 'Too many men' and recent single 'Get Busy' he performed with ease and left no-one in doubt about his credentials. He brought the show to a close by bring out the second mystery guests of the night, Boy Better Know collective with a reprise of 'Too many man' sending the crowd into a frenzy.

So that was it, the show was over, two very different art forms that leant to each other for the night, entertained the masses with a unique mash-up of musical cultures. London has been on a roll this year with all the musical events to celebrate the Olympics coming to town. Let's hope that the success of that night will inspire the councils to continue to use music and culture to bring together communities of all ages.