Fussy

It’s Sunday night at Glastonbury festival, and halfway through his set Ghetts tuts at a crowd semi-broken by the fifth and last day of the music marathon: “I had to take my in-ears out just to hear that clearly”. Despite the cheers that are more feeble than his punchy performance deserves, Ghetts has attracted noticeably more punters since the start of the production using his two decade’s worth of experience as an MC.

Plaistow-born Ghetts is one of the few grime artists to play at Glastonbury this year: a genre which falls within the Rap and RnB category on the iPlayer. There are 9 televised performances available to watch, compared with 27 in Indie/Rock. Festival co-organiser Emily Eavis has said roster decisions are made based on ‘what is happening in the music world’, but the impression is that these acts are few, and so moments like this feel special.

The band have red balaclavas on with white lettering, from afar making each resemble the Marvel monster Venom: the effect is menacing, and promises to go hard. The set is largely made up of tracks from ‘On Purpose with Purpose’ released in February, the same month in which he accepted the ‘Pioneer’ award at the MOBOs. 

‘Anakin’ comes first, Ghetts’ stares down a crowd that is but stirring. His flow and confident movement sell during ‘Skengman’, but it’s ‘Preach’ from the 2018 album Ghetto Gospel: The New Testament that elicits mass participation with its rallying chorus: ‘practise what you preach’.

Grime superstar Kano humbly shuffles onto the stage for ‘Mount Rushmore’, followed by a wrly smiling Wretch 32, but ‘Double Standards’ with Sampha is the standout of the hour. Commentary on racism and injustices within society and politics ties together the song’s general theme of the abuse of power: “A mum naming her son Muhammed is a madness / Jack’s in the airport with drugs in his baggage / And security are troublin’ Muhammed ’bout a sandwich”. The immediacy of the live band with the honesty of the lyrics make this version at The Park stage momentous. 

Ghetts and Shakka have the crowd bouncing for ‘Know My Ting’, raunchy, playful, and very different to the sombre content of the preceding tracks. It’s definitely a ‘feeling myself’ song. If you don’t pay too much attention to the words, their machismo could be charming; their confidence is certainly infectious.

South African artist Moonchild Sanelly brings a slightly bewildering but cute energy as she endlessly jogs around the stage for ‘Laps’, her huge blue hair bouncing. Despite a big hint by Ghetts that he’d like to see a mosh pit, no one commits apart from a group of about eight mates. It might be a hallucination from fatigue, but Sanelly’s voice sounds like she’s on helium. Now it’s the end of the hour and the mosh pit has doubled – truly a feat for Sunday evening at Glasto. Not surprising though, Ghetts commands a room – and clearly a field, too.

Listen to Double Standards from On Purpose, With Purpose below.