"Social, verbal and personal judgements - many actually improve with age, and there is a good name for this: it's called wisdom. A lot of older people have it, and we may do well to study such individuals to see how they can help younger people" - Molly Wagster, US National Institute of Ageing, quoted in The Observer, 23.3.03.
In February 1997, Jurassic 5 played their first UK gig in Folkestone. Performing at the three-day Fresh festival, they were the hit of the weekend, winning over a crowd of hip hop devotees with their old school-patterned mic-passing routines and taking the first steps down the road to tonight's career-highpoint, second sell-out Brixton show.
Since then, much has changed, but not J5. They still make earthy, unpretentious, back-to-basics hip hop, they are still sniffed at by the sort of critic that thinks rap has to sound three years ahead of itself, yet slowly, steadily and surely they have built a massive audience, for one, very simple, reason. They are old enough to know that what they're doing is not only right, but great.
If they were worrying about how they were going to afford to get the hottest new Neptunes beat for their remix, or how to deconstruct hip hop in order to progress the music forward, they would most likely be awful. It's the very fact that J5 have age and wisdom on their side that makes them such a fabulous night out.
Their success is even more of a feat considering the audience they're playing to. At Fresh they performed to a die-hard clique of 24-7 b-boys, the kind of people who not only know the names of all of the Cold Crush Brothers, but who know what the Fantastic Five had for breakfast. On Tuesday. In 1972. Tonight's audience is young, t-shirted and alternative.
They whoop and holler at the "wrong" bits. But the fact that they love this band to the extent that they do is proof positive that J5's retro sound isn't a handicap but a blessing.
Jurassic blend call-and-response tag-team rhyming and in-unison choruses from the rapping barbershop quartet of Akil, Zaakir, Chali 2na and Mark 7even with Cut Chemist and Nu-Mark's rattling, clattering breaks and beats. The two DJs get their own time in the spotlight, Cut Chemist strapping on a portable turntable and over-the-shoulder mixer like a guitarist for a piece of absurdly entertaining scratch theatrics. But it's the whole thing together, the blend of four distinct voices and vocal presences, two musical heartbeats and one unified purpose that elevates J5 to the realm of the magical.
Among the tracks at last being acknowledged as the classics they are - a spine-tingling 'Concrete Schoolyard' has the packed Academy taking over chorus duties, while 'What's Golden' and 'Break' sound even better at room-shaking volume - there's time to say something, too. After a new, untitled, noisy, horn-strewn song that kicks-off with an unequivocal "F*ck the president!", they show photos of anti-war placards taken around London, and return with a newly resonant 'Freedom'.
All this and a message, too? Who knows: maybe wisdom is about to become hip.
