Elzhi Live - Jazz Cafe' London - 03/11/11

Another week and another dope show lined up for us, this time at the legendary Jazz cafe' which in recent years has brought some of the most classic names in Hip Hop to the big smoke - Rakim and M.O.P. just to mention a couple! Next up was Elzhi, one of the most skilled lyricists that has blessed the mic over the last decade and who took the effort to put together a live band just for this one show in LDN: a keyboard player, a drummer, a bassist and Elzhi's trusted DJ Houseshoes.

The show started off with a bang - Elzhi stepping down the narrow stairs that take to the stage and jumping into 'Genesis' from his Elmatic mixtape with that Hip Hop stage love every artist should have! And it wasn't hard to guess that Elmatic would feature heavily and the first half of the show was mostly dedicated to his latest solo offering: 'Halftime,' 'Memory Lane,' 'Life's a Bitch,' 'The World is Yours' and an outstanding performance of 'Represent' which merges into the Wu's 'C.R.E.A.M.' to send the crowd wild! Highlight of the night for me...and you can peep it in the video below of course!

The Detroit emcee then took a break to let his band do their thing for 10 minutes but was soon back on stage to kill it with classic verses from 'Motown 25', 'Deadly Medley', 'Hiding Place' and 'Come Get Me' - a fitting tribute to his late friend J.Dilla. And to end the show in style, Elzhi dropped a dope acapella verse before gifting us with 'Detroit State of Mind' - one of the best tracks on his newest mixtape and one of the best renditions on the night! All in all a great hip hop show from one of the best out there who even took time out at the end of the show to sign autographs and take pictures with pretty much everybody in the crowd! Big up to Elzhi and we hope to see him back in the big smoke real soon!