Five Must See Acts at Detonate Festival

Photo: Novelist

Nottingham is just weeks away from welcoming back Detonate Festival for its second edition. After the enormous success of last year, hype has understandably been high, with the festival's line up heightening anticipation to breaking point.

Amongst the huge drum & bass line up, all manner of bass music, hip hop, house and techno is also on offer as Detonate show the kind of booking insight that has made the clubnight so successful these past 16 years.

With it all taking place over one day - May 30th, we thought you might need a hand planning who you'll be seeing, so we've put together five acts who, for our money, are unmissable at this year's festival.

Nas

He might be hitting a few festivals across the UK this summer, but for each one we'd put him in our top five must see acts. A hip hop artist of this magnitude deserves to be witnessed at least once, especially as he'll be performing the entirity of Illmatic, widely regarded, and rightly so, as one of the finest hip hop LPs of all time. Miss Nas at your peril.

Mella Dee

We've been big fans of Mella Dee since hearing his and Mak & Pasteman's 'Mad City' for Monki & Friends Red Bull Studios EP last year. On closer inspection, it turned out that record wasn't a flash in the pan, not by any means.

Mella Dee has been busily evolving his own unique, broken sound since 2012, using classic jungle and rave themes with modern bass music know how, delivering a sound that really packs a punch on a big rig. 'Helter Skelter' above is a prime example of why we'll skanking like lunatics to his set at Detonate.

Kowton

Rugged, raw and ever so slightly left of field, Kowton's productions are on the cutting edge of bass music innovation, with grime templates jostling for position with the edgy Bristol bass sound of Livity Sound compadres Peverelist and Asusu. With his sets gleefully veering between techno and futuristic bass, Kowton is another dead cert for us come May 30th.

Mumdance & Novelist

It's been widely declared - 2015 is the year of grime, and right at the centre of the genre's coming of age is Mumdance and Novelist. Novelist's more laidback MCing above Mumdance's barmy beats yield consistently exciting results. Nobody out there sounds as fresh as these two, check out the glorious 'Take Time' above to see why we rate these two so highly.

Zomby

Zomby has been one of the most individual producers in electronic music since bursting onto the scene back in 2007. His ode to rave culture Where Were You In '92 remains a stone cold classic, brimming with style, energy and creativity.

His more recent works for 4AD have seen him produce stunning melodies over unusual 8-bit beats creating something unlike anything else we've heard. Expect the unexpected. Check out the full Detonate Festival line up here.

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