Wireless - Crystal Palace 2022
Wireless festival has always been at the top of the list for every hiphop, r&b and grime fan. This year the festival was split into three different locations, Crystal Palace, Finsbury Park and Birmingham and spread over two weekends. Kicking off on the first weekend of July, the Wordplay team headed to Crystal Palace for the first instalment of the festival to see the likes of A$AP Rocky, J Cole, Kali Uchis and Tyler the Creator.
As well as the huge headline acts, Wireless also supports up and coming artists in the rap scene. A London designer brand, Trapstar, hosted a stage which featured a line-up of emerging artists from around the world. With around 50,000 people attending, and the majority of these attendees being teenagers, the Wordplay team definitely bumped up the average age. Throughout the weekend there were multiple mosh pits and the ground shook with the hordes of people jumping up and down.
A$AP Rocky was eagerly anticipated and set to perform at the end of the first day, during the day there was Don Toliver who drew in a massive crowd to the main stage so early on in the day, he was short but sweet and played tracks from is 2020 album, Heaven or Hell. Bia was a highlight for us and brought a tonne of energy with her backing dancers. The Kid Laroi was a crowd favourite over on the main stage and everyone sang along to his top songs and he brought out Fivio Foreign to preform Paris to Tokyo. A$AP Rocky’s headline set was backed by two giant test crash dummies, featuring tracks from his 2018 album Testing such as Praise the Lord and (Da Shine), featuring Skepta, also throwing in Slow Thai’s MAZZA mid set into the mix. Rhianna made her first public appearance since giving birth to their son and appeared on the screen in the crowd to which brought a huge cheer around the park.
Flo Milli was first up for us on the main stage on day two. The viral star effortlessly performed songs from her debut mixtape Ho, why is you here? and walked down into the pit mid performance to grab her fans phones and take videos of herself. https://www.tiktok.com/@gracierodriguezx/video/7115921873833168134
Ari Lennox took to the stage and did not disappoint. From tracks like I been and Pressure the singers soulful voice was just as impressive live on stage as it is listening at home. In contrast, British rapper Nines’ appearance was met with a wall of mosh pits and bottles flying in the air. He talked between songs about just getting out jail and his performance featured tracks from his album Crop circle and Crabs in a Bucket. J Cole was at the top of our list to see live over the three days and gave an incredible performance. Beginning with newer material from his Off Season album to begin with and then also including older tracks for his day ones, the crowd sang along to every word. Regardless of the age of the crowd, his older material was recited back to him as much as his new material.
East London based rapper, Berwyn, gave an intimate show on the Trapstar stage, wearing a traffic cone hat given to him by one of his fans in the crowd at one stage of his performance. Little Simz was over on the main stage in the afternoon and as always flaunted her impressive lyrical skills and preformed songs from her Sometimes I Might Introvert album and Grey Area. Kali Uchis was unveiled on the mainstage from behind a huge curtain and put on a dreamy show with a stage set up of stairs and backup dancers. She included songs from her Spanish album Sin Miedo (del Amor y Otros Demonios) as well as some crowd favourites from her 2018 Isolation album such as Dead to me. Baby Keem was another highlight of the festival and really got the crowd going with Family Ties (Ft. Kendrick Lamar) and Trademark USA, his performance and crowd control was captivating to say the least. Closing the weekend was the eagerly anticipated Tyler the Creator who had a stage full of props resembling the great outdoors. Appearing in a full lumberjack outfit his presence was met with one of the biggest roars of the weekend. Starting off with Corso from his recent album Call me when you get lost. He talked about being back in the UK and shouted “Somebody tell Theresa May I’m back!” He ended the weekend with an enigmatic performance which had the festival goers wanting more.
All in all the abundance of artists performing was nothing short of impressive, the options to see your favourite artists was easy enough as the site did not have much ground to cover and the sound quality of both stages shook the ground to make sure everyone could hear what was going on from miles away.
Words by Katie Pill
Photos by Anis Ali
