Rinse | Born & Bred 2016 Festival review: 'A homage to homegrown London talent'

Despite being herded like cattle to get a drink at the bar, it was a strain not to have fun

As the headlines had made clear for weeks, there was, of course, no sign of Azealia Banks (Chazino Suban / Rinse | Born & Bred Festival)

Every year, the festival market gets yet more and more saturated. More exorbitant “glamping festivals” in barnyards, more new-age festivals with pedal-powered installations, more "bohemian" festivals with culturally dubious native American head-dresses.

For all of the above and more, Rinse | Born & Bred Festival is a breath of fresh of air. Co-hosted by Rinse FM and Found Series, the festival is in Haggerston Park in Hackney and pays homage to rave-inspired dance music, sound system culture and bass music of all varieties.

From grime to hip-hop, from house to drum ‘n’ bass, jungle, garage, techno and much more, it remains firmly rooted in the sounds within and beyond the capital. Rather than trying to chaotically cover all bases, it keeps its remit firmly, tightly focused on London talent.

After being patted down a little too aggressively by a wall of overzealous security, things loosened up. Just like the surrounding area of East London, the crowd was mixed. While prepubescent tweenie bopper grime fans definitely dominated, a few scattered old hands who’d witnessed the scene's beginnings remained dispersed in the crowd.

Despite being herded like cattle to get a drink at the bar (a feature of all London festivals) and feeling somewhat like you were trapped in an inner city playpen (another feature of London festivals), it was hard not to have fun. From Midlands MC Lady Leshurr’s bold lyrics to the icons of Congo Natty and Iron Dread’s jungle set, the day combined the new with the old.

(Chazino Suban / Rinse | Born & Bred Festival) (Chazino Suban / Born & Bred Festival)

As the headlines had made clear for weeks, there was, of course, no sign of Azealia Banks. The Harlem-born rapper, who had been scheduled to headline the event, was dramatically dropped out after her latest vitriolic Twitter tirade. In turn, the closest you got to Banks was South London Grime MC P Money’s ‘Fuxx Azealia Banks’ t-shirt – which, along with some of his lyrics, got some of the loudest cheers of the day.

Although some of the shrieks no doubt had something to do with the fact P Money had been pushed into the headline spot at the last moment, the slot was actually supposed to be filled by Grime godfather Wiley but, in typical Wiley fashion, this didn’t quite materialise. While last year Wiley showed face for the last nine minutes of his hour-long slot, this year, he decided not to show up at all. But the crowd seemed too half cut to notice by this time and his little brother Cadell, P Money and DJ Slimzee’s set more than made up for it.