The second annual edition of Annie Mac Presents: Lost and Found (Amp) recently ended amid complaints of Qawra turning into the new Paceville, police raiding planes looking for drugs and a cool €8 million reputedly entering Malta’s pockets. By the sounds of it, no one was actually focusing on the music and what it means for Malta’s place as a burgeoning dance music hotspot.
Annie Mac, DJ and host of her eponymous electronic dance show on BBC Radio 1, has decided that Malta will get a slew of some of the most important names in the UK dance scene every year come April. Featuring castle raves, boat parties, pool parties and a festival in Ta’ Qali’s Numero Uno with three stages, this is hands down one of the biggest music festivals Malta has, with over 60 DJs and an estimated 8,000 attendees, most of them foreign.
While Isle of MTV might be bigger and Earthgarden and The Farsons Beer Festival might feature a large amount of good artists and a respectable production design, Amp is actually a full-on, four-day festival, with accommodation, security and wristbands included for attendees and the feel of a well-organised event. Perhaps most importantly, it was clear the people who had travelled to Malta for Amp were here to rave.
The bill was heavily house-influenced, with names like Disclosure, Groove Armada, Bicep, Redlight and Julio Bashmore all featuring at the main site in the evening. But dubstep pioneer Skream, grime rapper Stormzy and trap godfather Hudson Mohawke’s inclusion, among others, made it clear that Annie Mac wanted to showcase the most important names in contemporary UK music, not just house music.
As awesome as a party at Tal-VirtÙ castle sounded – not to mention the not-so-awesome sounding idea of a boat party on a windy weekend at the tail end of March – I opted to go just to the pool parties and the main site in the evening. Pool parties were set up from 1pm to 7pm, with the main site (Numero Uno) opening from 8pm until 4am. The way the line-up worked out, I didn’t have to miss anyone I wanted to see.
The first artist up was grime innovator Logan Sama, someone who has seen the origins of dubstep and grime in England. Logan Sama has been such a key player in the movement that he can regularly get UK rappers to remix their songs with his name, Logan Sama, replacing some key lyric in the song –some of which we were treated to live.
Coming upon the scene was surreal; one second we are walking along the Qawra waterfront, music getting louder, when all of a sudden you looked beyond the railings and there’s a full on party going on. A lot of people were just standing there, watching the mass of scantily-clad Brits people get down to some heavy grime.
It was clear the people who had travelled to Malta for Amp were here to rave
Logan Sama’s set was a good introduction to what Lost and Found was going to be; an exercise in British music patriotism. Shoutouts to Essex, Birmingham and London made the Brits feel right at home and an ending rendition of Solo 45’s Feed ‘Em to The Lionsa made me unsure whether I was at a Euro 2016 UK-France exhibition match or poolside in Qawra.
That evening we headed to the main site for a first glimpse of the place. One main stage, one alternative stage, an indoor club and a chill out area made Numero Uno look better than I had ever seen it (I have only been there once, before, to be fair).
First on my list to see was Eats Everything, who, funnily enough, my friend had first discovered that one other time I had come to Numero Uno. The main stage design was impressive, the visuals swift and seemingly tangible. Eats Everything’s trademark big chin was visible even from the back of the main stage. The Bristol DJ’s bass-heavy take on house, with an emphasis on percussion, was definitely a crowd pleaser and, while he didn’t play Tric Trac, the track that introduced me to him, his set was still enjoyable.
Katy B was next up on the alternative stage. Katy B blew up a few years ago with her anthemic single Katy On a Mission, which brought the masses the first taste of a polished grime/dubstep sound. I knew literally no other tracks of hers and showed up halfway through her set, assuming she would end her set with Katy On a Mission. While she was a presence on stage, the rest of her songs veered way too close to straight R&B for my tastes. The crowd responded well to another single of hers, Louder, but they really lost it to Katy On a Mission, which ended her set with a much needed drum ‘n’ bass jump around.
Back on the main stage, Seth Troxler was going back to back with The Martinez Brothers. The Martinez Brothers’ strict house was sometimes complementary and sometimes at odds with Seth Troxler’s techno leanings and, not enjoying either genre much, I left as soon as the piano atmospherics came in.
The next day, acts like Toddla T and DRS and Shy FX & Stamina MC showed me just how big of an impact hip-hop is having on grime. Fetty Wap cuts were in abundance, and I was surprised to see how much love was being shown for Drake. The Canadian crooner’s recent affiliation with Boy Better Know, the most important UK grime collective around, had seemingly paid dividends.
You could sense the crowd’s anticipation for Stormzy. The 22-year-old has already garnered millions of hits on Youtube and hit the stage running. However, there were technical difficulties with his mic, with the crowd being unable to hear him and leading to chants of protests. Still, he didn’t let the volume get in his way and put on the show everyone was waiting for.
The final day brought the two main reasons I had attended the festival – professional shade-throwing rapper Lady Leshurr and Hudson Mohawke, whose unique take on bass music has changed contemporary urban music over the past five years.
Lasy Leshurr’s Queen’s Speech series has turned the traditional hip-hop song into a weapon, with Lady Leshurr’s absolutely contemporary slang, idiom flips and use of rhyme making quick work of anyone she deems ‘nasty’. Her set, while barely 30 minutes, showed that her speed and energy were real and when she threw toothbrushes at the crowd, “for anyone who forgot to brush their teeth this morning”, I know she wasn’t playing.
The penultimate act of the festival was Hudson Mohawke going back to back with Mark Ronson, whom most people might (not) know as the guy who wrote Uptown Funk, one of the most annoying songs of the past few years. When I found out he was back to back with HudMo, I became very wary, very fast. Was he planning to drop some Bruno Mars at the ending to the festival?
Luckily, my fears were for nought. Mark Ronson opened with a blistering mix of Waka Flocka Flame’s Grove St. Party and TNGHT’s Goooo, which made me instantly love him, regardless of his past pop transgressions.
Hudson Mohawke’s discography is too varied and vast to really dig into in a live set, but his tracks, like Can’t Wait To’, ‘Bugg’n’ and Chimes, all went down a storm and were worth the price of admission alone. Back to back, they paid tribute to old school hip-hop, modern hip-hop and the convergence of hip-hop and electronic music that is trap music. Three years ago I would have told you it would be impossible to see such contemporary innovators in such close quarters in Malta, but with the recent news that Hudson Mohawke will again be returning to Malta in August this year, clearly Malta’s got something that some of the top British DJs are interested in.
Whereas any large scale event in Malta either focused on pop music, trance music, or dance music, Amp provided a look into the myriad other scenes making up contemporary UK bass music. With festival attendees already looking forward to next year’s flight to Malta, we can only hope that more DJs of this calibre show up here. And that the people of Qawra get used to the sounds of UK grime on the Qawra boulevard.