Aminé - O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire (24/02/19)

Sunday night saw the Portland-born rapper Aminé take to Shepherd’s Bush Empire for his second show in London, for the last leg of his fully sold out Europe tour. Having failed to get tickets for his original London date, I was relieved for him to add an extra date that meant I wouldn’t have to travel to Manchester, or somewhere equally expensive to get to like Amsterdam, and managed to buy ground level tickets. I have wanted to see Aminé for a long time and the release of his brilliant album ONEPOINTFIVE only further fuelled my desperation to catch his performance However, whilst I love his music, the videos I had seen of his shows, particularly from Coachella, exhibited a lack of grace and subtlety, instead filled with screams into the microphone that bear no resemblance to his studio recordings whatsoever. With that in mind, I went into the show somewhat hesitantly. My expectations were lower than what they ought to have been for an artist I am so invested in, although I was excited to see the special guest that Aminé has teased on his Instagram story earlier in the day.

Shepherd’s Bush Empire is structured with the usual standing arrangement in front of the stage, with three looming balconies respective levels above going up into the sky. It is usually safe to say that the best place to get tickets is where you are closest to the action, but this time I did not feel as if that were the case. I arrived approximately 40 minutes before the headline act was set to start, but the room was already mostly filled. The crowd’s average age was about 17 years old; for one of the first times in my life, at the age of 21, I felt too old to be at the concert I was attending. My group and I kind of hung back to the left, close enough to have a decent view of the stage but far enough to avoid the sweaty, claustrophobic midst of the mosh pits. I could not help to think that I would rather been one level up, able to see everything on the stage without constantly being pushed past by people trying to get to the front or pushed back by said enormous mosh pits.

After finding our spot, we watched the support DJs who were, without exaggerating, maybe the grumpiest people ever and just terrible at their jobs. As an aspiring DJ, this was a disheartening and frustrating set to watch, as the pair named +Sound, who looked like rejected trialists for Odd Future, ran through crowd pleasers with no intention of mixing any of the songs, unable to even attempt looking remotely interested in their work. At one point, one of them literally started playing on his phone while his pal pretended to look busy, displaying the most accurate and literal form of the term ‘phoning it in’. My frustrations continued as the crowd ate it up as if they were watching Travis Scott performing ‘Sicko Mode’ himself instead of this guy, who looked like you couldn’t buy a smile from. How these two found themselves supporting Aminé I will never know, but luckily, they did not set the standard for the rest of the show.

After a short, mildly improved interlude from Aminé’s own DJ, the main man finally hit the stage and massively exceeded my expectations. Kicking off proceedings with ‘DR. WHOEVER’, after a brilliant introduction on the big screen featuring Ricky Thompson presenting the star and reciting his prologue from the album opener, it was clear that Aminé had learned how to perform and had prepared a superbly arranged and considered show. The video became a live stream when Aminé started rapping his first verse, but was switched back to Ricky Thompson flamboyantly dancing in his bedroom when the heavy beat dropped. For me, the visuals were the best thing about the show. They were brilliantly and carefully curated, designed to bring out a top tier spectacle. ‘Chingy’ plastered images of the ‘Right Thurr’ artist of the same name, ‘Cantu’ exhibited black idols such as Beyoncé and Fresh Prince era Will Smith amongst many as a celebration of black beauty and excellence, and ‘Reel it in’ closed with his friends dancing in a home video. In particular, his performance of ‘Ratchet Saturn Girl’ was aided in its two-part split by Aminé placing himself in front of an arrow with the word ‘ratchet’ for the bass-heavy trap part on one side of the stage, before switching to the other with the words ‘lover-boy’ for the delightful vocal section of the song. Not only had he prepared both thought-provoking and hilarious visuals for each song that complimented their message, but he also used the correct cadence for each song to actually get across his message and feelings rather than merely hyping the crowd.

After the first couple songs, the rapper established a self-loving call-and-response with the audience; he would shout ‘your beautiful’ and the crowd would follow with ‘I know’. This theme of loving oneself is not only expressed in Aminé’s music but his persona as well, exemplified in his glittery makeup that demonstrates he is not afraid to portray himself however he so pleases. There was a moment where a love-stricken fan tried to charge the stage to get a touch of her idol, but she was swiftly taken down by a very alert security guard. This was made worse when Aminé then invited a different audience member to come up on stage with him and sign his trousers with their name and future dreams, but I guess she knew the consequences before the NFL-style takedown. Other than that slight blip, Aminé’s attempts to rile up the crowd without his former shrieks worked really well and a lot of credit has to go to him for amping up the audience in such a pleasant way.

The set was only an hour, which may have disappointed some, but I felt I couldn’t really have asked for more. The first half of the act ran through most of the new album with minimal breaks in between songs to keep everyone enthused, filled with the occasional banger from his debut album Good For You. A half-time interlude from the great Ricky Thompson set up Aminé to dish out the highlights reel in the second half, dishing out hit after hit to everyone’s delight. A personal favourite of mine, ‘Spice Girl’ was delivered exceptionally and was one of the best parts of the night; when the song was finished, Aminé professed his love for the British group and brought out Mel C to do the chorus with him one more time. ‘Caroline’ was introduced over a much softer instrumental before exploding into its hard-hitting drums and catchy beat, whilst ‘Reel It In’ had 2000 people all going crazy.

Every song was a spectacle, infinitely better than I was expecting going in to the show. The set-list was superb, the special guest was hilarious, and there was no filler chat about nothing, something that I have come to expect from so many artists nowadays. This show was about the creative genius that Aminé is and he delivered on it fantastically. I would recommend you catch one of his shows as soon as you can, but as this was the last show so I guess you’ll have to wait.

8/10