Camden born MC Ms Dynamite raises the roof at youth festival

Turning Point Festival took over the Camden Roundhouse for 3 days, entirely produced by a team of young people all aged 25 and under.

When I arrived at the venue on Saturday 18th September on the surprisingly hot London day my first realisation was that there were a lot of kids and teenagers outside the venue, and they were the most eclectic and fashionably dressed teens I had ever seen.

I managed to hear the last few songs of a set by Bluey Robinson – Bluey is a 21 year old dreadlocked urban signing to Sony Music with a cheeky personality and strong stage presence.

It was very strange to see the main stage section at the Roundhouse so empty, and with the crowd being mostly under aged, I had the whole bar to myself, which was a treat and a first for me at that venue!

Bluey has a very sweet and soulful voice that he combines with funky tunes from his backing band, and throws in some impressive falsetto notes; admittedly his crowd mostly consisted of shrieking girls who surrounded him eagerly.

Electro dance act, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, was next, fronted by the record-spinning Orlando donned with trademark Red Indian style headdress.

He played out a crowd-pleasing mash of electro beats to the small crowd of youngsters, getting the audience moving about, especially when his dinosaur costumed dancers joined him onstage.

I then discovered where all the adults were! – I felt at home as I wandered on to the balcony of the Roundhouse, which previously I have known as being the naughty place for smokers at gigs, but today it was transformed into a sun-catching veranda spot with live Reggae music care of the Reggae Roast DJs.

This eclectic group of Rasta's and urbanites host Reggae nights with live DJing and MCing around London and they've always got a crowd nodding their head to the beats and bouncing to the rhythms.

The balcony also had an aromatic smelling BBQ, as well as a handful of independent stalls tempting the crowd with treats from cupcakes to clothing. In the outside marquee I found all the adults who were intimidated by the urban youth or simply just wanted to enjoy some entertainment that didn't make them feel out of touch.

Funny Women is a comedy competition for women, which has been taking place over the festival season, and we were judging six contestants to choose who would make it through to the final 2 days later – it was a nice, fun addition to the festival.

The compere warmed up the crowd suitably and the women took to the stage one by one. There were some genuinely funny ladies there such as Clare Lomas, who made it through to the final with her keyboard and humorously altered songs by other artists.

Radio One DJ Mistajam filled up the main stage space with the biggest crowd I had seen all day, playing out hip hop beats and grime tunes to the audience and getting them going. Like a true professional he hyped the crowd up during his set, even stopping the music at one point and explaining, "For those of you that don't know about grime, when the beat drops we basically form a grime mosh pit and go mad."

After spending some more time on the balcony enjoying the Reggae roots and rhythms that was being provided, I joined the bulging crowd, which was a bit more mixed in with older folk now, in preparation for Ms Dynamite's performance.

Ms Dynamite took to the stage and owned the evening – amongst her set she played the hits that thrust her into the limelight 10 years ago – 'Boo!' and her collaboration with garage group So Solid Crew, 'Envy', which made the older ones of us in the crowd embarrass the youngsters who were looking at us confused as we danced along reliving our youth.

Ms Dynamite held the audience, talking constantly throughout her set and reiterating my thoughts, "You lot are so young. Look at you! How do you even know this tune?"

She spoke to the crowd about how important it was to get an education and spoke of her admiration for the event. "Youth get such a bad rap these days because of all the knife crime and violence but look at what you lot can do. Society needs to connect with you."

She even invited young talent from the audience to come up and showcase their talent live onstage, and 5 brave youngsters joined her and rapped and sang there and then. It was a really encouraging moment with the crowd really supporting their peers, and Ms Dynamite showered them with encouragement.

Roll Deep, London grime collective, then entertained the crowd with their set of tunes including chart topper 'Good Times'.

The ever-changing group were joined on stage by a female singer for some of their tunes and did a rendition of B.o.B and Paramore's 'Aeroplanes', which was a slightly odd choice.

Their set really got a lot of the youngsters going but the consensus from the older crowd was disappointment that Wiley was not there, and also that the guys sounded more pop than grime.

The venue was now very empty as I imagine most kids had been taken home by their parents – I can't help think that the event could have been advertised more to older crowds.

However, considering a youth team had organised the whole event, I was very impressed with how well-run and varied the performances were and think that this is just the start of Turning Point's success in the festival stakes.

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