Whopper hot dogs, dads playing catch with their kids and an American commentator blaring across Crystal Palace Park: “This has been so badass y’all’’. On Saturday, Major League Baseball had come to the big smoke for a Home Run Derby, where US sporting legends took turns batting with local amateurs in a day billed as “festival vibes” – with AJ Tracey rounding it all off as a star headliner.
On the surface it seemed like a sensible billing. The big-ticket UK rap and grime performer has long made clear that he is a fan of American sports, even naming last year’s album, Flu Game, after basketball legend Michael Jordan. His song Thiago Silva also compares life on the streets in West London to the battlefield of the football pitch.
But as AJ Tracey stepped onstage, half an hour late, he quickly realised something was amiss. “All I need from you lot is energy, alright?” he said, almost as a plea, to the shrunken, spacious, and static crowd. It turns out that his high-octane tracks about life in the fast lane did not appeal to the family crowd, most of whom had gone home.
The setlist did little to help rouse the audience. He opened with Triple S, a deep cut from 2019’s self-titled album, that failed to get the mosh pit stirring despite its bone-rattling trap beat and bouncing synths. His air of boredom hardly lifted the spirits.
His next song Anxious nodded to his fondness for showing off: “AJ Tracey’s such a dickhead, all he do is boast.” But there was no currency for boasting on stage, where he frequently questioned why the crowd was so timid. The DJ at the back of the stage was instructed to run the tracks back-to-back. He was clearly going through the motions.
After such an inauspicious start, it was a relief when both he and the audience started to liven up to his more recognisable numbers. The infectious hooks and straight-to-the-grime-jugular beat of Rain, featuring fast-rising rapper Aitch, finally got the gun fingers waving.
He ended on garage anthem Ladbroke Grove, which for the first time had the whole audience singing along in full-throated chorus. In another first, the rapper seemed like he was enjoying himself, holding the mic out to the audience for the usual gig fare of call-and-response.
But then the set concluded, barely 40 minutes after it had started. He had climbed a steep hill and then refused to look at the view. A hasty departure left a note of sourness concerning a presumably top-tier artist who had fallen victim to some bizarre billing. Jealousy too, for those who hadn’t seen him in his prime at Glastonbury.
