Kentish Town Forum, LondonPent-up demand for the
Rapper, who has faced legal restrictions on recording, meant his debut headline outing was a rapturous occasion
By the time half nine comes around, north London’s Kentish Town Forum is more pressure cooker than performance space. The stage has been hidden behind a black cloth for the past half an hour, with the final touches of torchlit prep going on behind it. When the curtain eventually rises – revealing an enormous measuring jug, in a nod to the cover and title of Digga D’s Made in the Pyrex mixtape, atop which sits his DJ, Bempah – the mostly teenaged crowd explodes in a frenzy of screams and Snapchatting. The energy in the room will remain at roughly this level, undipped, until Digga departs the stage in an hour’s time.
This show – the
London drill rapper’s debut headline performance, and the first in a string of sold-out
UK and
Ireland tour dates – has been years in the making.
prison stints and harsh legal restrictions on how, where and when Digga is allowed to write, record and release
music have prevented him from following the typical trajectory of an artist with gold records and chart coups under their belt. He’s had to work around it. Reduced supply can jack up demand; tonight is proving that truism.