Jay Z Plays The Camden Roundhouse, Pictures

JAY Z, the US rapper, was performing on stage at The Roundhouse in Camden, north London last night.

Among the venue’s forthcoming attractions are Enter Shikari, Yo La Tengo, and a night featuring Let’s Talk Tactics, Personal Space Invaders and Toxic Funk Berry, all of who clearly haven’t. By his standards, it’s effectively a gig in a Scouts’ hut with Akela’s brother doing the lights.

The Roundhouse is a venue more in need of Jay Cloth than Jay Z.

Also there was Ian Brown, the former lead singer of the Stone Roses who these days look like what you’d imagine his mum to look like when sucking a lemon sherbet. He’s got a new album out.

In Clash magazine Brown talks in the Manchester patois that’s become the north’s version of EastEnders English, the reedy nasal whine spoken by anywhere living between Watford and Portsmouth:

Yeah similar crew, I’ve got me live drummer Maxi…
Yeah, quite a lot, me and him have been tight up.

John Aizlewood tells Standard readers:

It’s not often you get former Stone Roses singer Ian Brown, BBC creative director Alan Yentob and reality TV boy band JLS in the same room.

You’d be heard pressed to think of a single other time two populists and a pressed out boyband were in the same room as the friendly face of black American hip-hop.

And this is Alan Yentob who told telly watchers:

…the aim of Alan Yentob’s Imagine last night was clear: to explain the ways of Jay-Z to the art strand’s ageing middle-class audience (which Yentob personifies). “If there’s one rapper you need to know about it’s him,” Yentob told us at the off, as if cramming us for an exam.

Yeah. That middle-aged black kid with the glasses and the fleshy face has got it. Jay Z will soon support ColdPlay at the Old Trafford cricket ground. And more Yentobs can tune in.

Here’s the facts, pop pickers:

This is Jay-Z who in securing his 11th number one album with The Blueprint 3, move ahead of Elvis Presley as the solo artist with most number one albums in the history of Billboard’s Top 200 chart.

That might not mean all that much to you if you’ve not tried to have a No,1 album. But it’s a big deal, and ensures that in-the-know herd follow the man with the whistle.

The rest come to marvel…