Schooly D & Kid Swift

Essential Festival 2000 review

The pattern for the day was set when Schooly D and his DJ, Kid Swift, were very late appearing, forcing the day's host, Kela, to show off one of his new routines, a beatbox version of Soul II Soul's Back to Life, with his mouth standing in for the drums, bass and vocalist all at the same time. Ridiculously good, as usual from our very own member of the Rock Steady Crew, but maybe not quite as dope as Rahzel, later on in the day.

Kid Swift finally got things underway with a smooth demonstration of beat juggling, throwing in plenty of body tricks for the punters to cheer about, including scratching with his nose. After this little warm up, Schooly School came on stage rocking full on pimp gear - tasselled brown leather waistcoat, black vest, floppy beige leather cap and some of the biggest sunglasses you have ever seen. Suitably impressed by his awesome get-up, I sat back as he proceeded to roll out the old school philly-style funk, playing the mid 80's tunes that made him famous. 'Gucci Time', 'P.S.K.' and 'Saturday Night' all got an outing and I wasn't complaining - they were conceived with a massive sound system in mind and the Essential PA was just about up to it, getting the ground shaking with each bass note.

His set was just what you'd expect - he patrolled the stage looking for all the world like Iceberg Slim and yelled 'muthafucker' a lot while Kid Swift scratched constantly, exactly the same as back in the day when Code Money was the DJ. The one fault was the length of the set - he only played six songs which is fairly unforgivable when you've released as many albums as he has. It was a real pity as he was starting to work the crowd well when he announced that he was only going to play one more tune, totally deflating the atmosphere. When that tune was 'School's Out' by big-beat hero Mekon, on which he guested, people roared their approval and concentrated on enjoying the last five minutes of the show. Such a seasoned performer should know better than to short change his fans like that, and although they were running late, it can't have been the promoters who forced him off, as Kid Swift carried on DJing despite Schooly D having left the stage.

Schooly D was effortlessly cool and played the stomping tracks I hoped he would, but acted like he just didn't give a fuck, turning up late and taking too long to set up, before finishing so soon. It wasn't very professional from someone who has been in the game for so long and left a sour taste in the mouth when, having got the crowd going, he walked off to leave Kid Swift to spin out the last 15 minutes of their slot.