When Taylor calls out an aside of “Won’t you talk to me baby?”, the Barnet posse answers with a response of “Oi, oi, oi, oi, oi”, baffling the soul buffs in the audience. He was into Deep Purple before all this soul bollocks.” The intriguing opposites of sanctified soul and base metal, Memphis and Middlesex, are inscribed deeply into the music. “His mum wanted to put him on Opportunity Knocks when he was eight, but he wouldn’t do it. Che (“Yeah, really, my dad was a communist”) says that Lewis, together with his brother Matthew, who plays bass in the band, has been making music in his bedroom since he was a kid.
An insight into the enigma of Taylor comes from a chance encounter with one of the Barnet posse on the guest-list. It’s a song so good that it makes the blue-eyed soul comparisons come true, but subsequent numbers proved that Taylor is nobody’s clone. Opening with the beautiful “Whoever”, the quintet stroked out the subtle street-soul rhythms in a quietly masterful manner. The club was sold out, Paul Weller was at the bar and there was a distinctive apres-Brits feel. The potential equation whereby tuneful funk in a Jamiroquai vein is crossed with the American appeal of guitar rock brings dollar signs to the eyes. His vocabulary of gestures is a little limited, true, but it’s not a problem when he keeps his hands busy playing guitar, which he does staggeringly well, rifling off subtle Memphis riffs interspersed with the odd heavy metal solo
No wonder his record company, Island, likes him so much.
As far as stage presence goes, he’s certainly no no-hoper either, boasting moody looks and considerable coiled-spring-meets-cuddly-vulnerability appeal. While Taylor’s music might occasionally aspire to the ecstatic swoon of the divine Marvin, he’s coming at it from rock rather than soul and he seems to be into something else entirely. On the evidence of this show – the first in a month-long Sunday residency at Ronnie’s – neither of the benchmarks has much credence. ‘Sounds like Marvin Gaye, looks like Melvin Hayes”, could have been the rather cruel verdict on Barnet’s blue-eyed soulster after his brilliant debut album arrived seemingly out of nowhere to wild acclaim last year, only to be followed by a couple of live outings where the singer was said to fall well short in the charisma stakes. As a statement of history and community that sounded like a party, it summed up a joyous night.Nick Hasted. They played some Run-DMC, bringing back a name more forgotten even than theirs to the fold.It was followed by a white light streaking suddenly through the crowd and the best of their new songs, “Stakes is High”, a litany of abuses of black people and music by the careless and the cruel. “You gotta keep it like that, you gotta keep it like that,” they pleaded as Tupac raised unquestioned devotion.
They listed their music’s great names, and asked the crowd to respond. “Daisy don’t mean a thing.”A final “I” turned into a drawn-out rumble, and they slipped in a song from De La Soul Is Dead.For one night at least, they really had killed the past, not by rejecting it, but by battering it into the present.Their position assured, De La Soul went on to reclaim hip-hop’s past, too. They assaulted the songs in a process of ruthless reinvention.They made “Me, Myself and I” into a party record, a simple noise “Daisy don’t mean anything,” they rapped. And his band played the hits, but not with the expected resignation and the acceptance that their past selves had won. “Anybody know about 3 Feet High and Rising?” Dave asked, and the crowd roared “Yeah, yeah,” he sighed. Part old- skool, part Play School, the mood was confident in a way beyond any of their recent records.
But their past still had to be faced. The crowd, divided into “the hip-hop motherfuckers over here” and “the wankers over here”, waved their hands in the air as records crackled and scratched.
Stagecraft was limited to what MCs Dave and Pos had to say, and they responded by turning north London into a New York block party circa 1979. Turntables were shrouded by a rough blanket, a primitive screen hung at the back. And when they did stroll on stage, all the blows to their reputation soon faded away
Everything about them had been stripped down. The place was rammed, jammed up with expectation for four hours before De La Soul finally arrived. Their last release, Stakes is High, was greeted with a shrug But inside the Forum, it seemed that no one had cared. Ever since their follow-up to the 1989’s landmark 3 Feet High and Rising announced the fact, attempting to kill the “daisy age” which they initiated but killing their pop career with it, it had seemed as if hip-hop’s mutant rush long ago rolled over one of the form’s most impressive talents. The world outside this venue thought De La Soul was dead.