I think it's worth telling you about Mr Hudson and the time I saw him because he doesn't get the credit he deserves for being one of Birmingham's best lyricists and songwriters.
It was 2010 and me and a friend went to see him at the Rainbow Warehouse In Birmingham. I'm not even sure if there is any connection between the rainbow warehouse and the Ironically named (It's completely black) pub and live venue next door to it. The Rainbow warehouse seems to host more club nights than proper gigs as far as I can tell but its a great venue, basically a sort of tent pitched over a few walls covered in arty graffiti, the only problem with the place was that changing stages was difficult and whole drum kits had to be moved about in a tiny little gap between the audience and the stage.
First act on that night was Wolverhampton's very own rap star 'Tenny Ten' (Aka Ten Shott -as he explains on his 'Freedom of Speech Mix-tape the difference is that 'Ten Shott doesn't give a fuck'. I was impressed by how good him and his comrades were live. 'Oh My Dayz' started off the gig brilliantly, It's a gloriously silly bouncy party starter, the kind that should rightfully be a number one. Other highlights were a hilariously dark doing where Tenny pretended he was going to commit suicide and the other MC rapped to talk him out of it, and a surprisingly mature song called 'Blood Diamonds' about diamond conflicts.
Afterwards we got a set by Tinie Tempah it seemed a little bit odd that Tinie was supporting someone like Mr Hudson when he'd just had a hit with 'Pass out' but it was a thrill seeing him in a small environment about a month or two before the release of 'Disc-overy'. We got to her the songs that would make up his brilliant Début before anyone else had, and the songs all sounded just that bit better in a pre produced state. He had his backing band of a DJ, guitarist, and drummer (who the girls next to us were all flirting with). it was a short gig but it was blatantly obvious that this was arena headlining material we were seeing. he finished with a triumphant performance of 'Pass Out' which being the only song most of us knew got the mad response you'd expect.
We met him afterwards and really it was a very short meeting, all I did was take a photo of him and my friend together.
Mr Hudson had a lot to top after that lot, and well hie kind of did. It seemed a bit odd having him on after the Grimefest but we were up for a change. He had a full band complete with a friendly looking black woman playing steel drums. Mr H had a natural charisma, dressed in a white shirt and some nice pointy shoes and the crowd loved him. The songs were mostly made up of stuff from 'Straight No Chaser' and one or two new tracks we were lucky to hear. The crowd seemed split up between one side who were going wild and another side who weren't, that's the side we were on, so I seem to remember Mr H generally peering out on to that side of the stage. My memories of the gig are slightly hazy so lets just say that this and the time I saw him support Calvin Harris (In 2009 when he was good) were great gigs.
Anyway after a while of hanging around, the bands drummer went up top us and said 'Do you wanna meet Ben?' after a moment of confusion we said yeah!. Ben was quite drunk at this point but he was still an absolute gentleman, we had a proper conversation, where he told us about his first gig at the Hare and Hounds. He also kissed the hand of the girl I was with which took us all by surprise. This encounter pretty much answered my question of how a boy from Birmingham ended up becoming mates with Kanye West and Jay Z its pretty much because its impossible not to like him, he's a true gentleman.
I highly recommend that if you see his records in your local store that you get them. Since that encounter Tenny 10 has kept on doing gigs as well as the odd single and mix-tape. Tinie's become huge and Mr Hudson has annoyed us all a little bit by focussing on his BigKids project rather than his long overdue Third album.
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