Accelerated Culture
Drum'n'Bass Awards Winners Party
AIR (formally Code)

31.1.04

Well the votes were counted and the winners were announced back in December, to celebrate the winners on the past years performance in the drum and bass scene, they showed us why they were voted winners at the Award winners party.

Arrived at Air just before 10 and was greeted by an enormous queue, with the A list line-up on offer tonight you could understand why so many people were eagerly early here tonight.

Walked straight into the main arena and was greeted by an oldskool set from Nicky blackmarket, voted best oldskool jungle dj. He played a mixture of 97-99 tunes including a few of my favourites Turbulence, 26 Bass along with a few congo natty classics such as champion deejay and Better than them. It wouldn't be Nicky Blackmarket without playing chopper over original nuttah. He played a dub plate version of nuttah with uk's vocals on top which I thought went down really well. Presha was mcin for Nicky.

After Nicky it was the turn of the Undiluted dj Brockie, Presha was mcin for his set too, Brockie started the set with System test. Its good to see that with the extra stage we had the return of the stage dancers!! Near the end of Brockies set Shabba turned up.

Well I think either a dj was on a no show or running late as Blackmarket played a second set, this time playing up front material including the Stevie hyper tribute move ya body. Well I thought it was best to check out the 2nd arena

Upstairs in the second room and Transit Mafia, representing breakbeat.co.uk voted best drum and bass website/forum, was finishing up along side nu-breeds Shortston MC. Well after Transit Mafia it was the turn of best record labels Ram Recordins Shimon, he played an awesome set playing a few dub plates along with the 2001 monster Body rock. Which I've not heard for a very long time and thought it got a good response seeing how old it is now. Manchester Tonn piper joined the mc's during the set

Back in the main arena and the tru playa Dj Hype was on, he played a rolling set playing the zinc remix of ready or not. Well I thought I'd check out the oldskool room.

The music in hear was quite low as it's the chill out room but the tunes were heavy, I didn't catch which dj was on but he played a couple of 93 tunes including the moving shadow classic helicopter and also tango and ratty's Final Conflict. I can't wait for flashback's return as I miss my oldskool!!!

Back to the main arena and hype was finishing up accompanied by the up and coming winner Eksman, and IC3 he was rounded his set off playing Rah remix and also the Ska remix too.

Well Full Cycle's very own Krust was on after Hype, which was a bit of a surprise considering he wasn't billed on the flyer, maybe due to a cancellation of other dj's.

At this point I decided to head home, overall it was a good night but there was numerous no shows and cancellation, which is a bit unfortunate, but it was a busy rammed night here at AIR.

Massive shouts to Justin @ Kool, Nicky BM, IC3, Eksman and Hazard, also shouts to Zoë + Collete, Astro also to Ross and the Solihull boys