After a stratospheric climb in popularity over the last five years, thousands of eager punters stormed the Brisbane Entertainment Centre en masse for one of London's hottest exports – Central Cee.
In what is his largest tour and first outing down under, Oakley Neil Caesar-Su – more commonly known by his stage name Central Cee – is celebrating the release of his debut studio album, 'Can't Rush Greatness', earlier this year.Since exploding in 2020 with viral sensation 'Day In The Life', the 27-year-old drill-rapper has truly supported the resurgence in the hip hop sub-genre, with witty bars, cheeky hooks, and beats as hard as the diamonds adorned around the rapper's throat in his Queen Elizabeth chain (that of course, made it to the stage as well).
Image © Zane Taprell
As the namesake release and tour suggests, Cench has opted to take it slow and steady in releasing his debut album, ensuring it encapsulated his growth and artistry, and accurately represents his incredibly strong brand as a musician and celebrity alike.
This is not to say the rising star has been sitting on his hands, leaving fans starved for music. Instead, he has carefully and strategically focused on releasing quality over quantity, satiating fans with some truly fantastic collaborations, EPs, and singles over the last few years.
Tracks like 'Sprinter', a collaboration with countrymen Dave, and 'Band4Band', a collaboration with the US's Lil Baby, ensured hip hop fans across the globe stood no chance of forgetting the ever growing and looming presence of the young blood.
Collaborations of this calibre have increased the global reach of Cench. However, to assume the artist relies on collaboration for success isn’t only false, but a discredit to the work and grind that has been displayed by the London local over the decade or so since entering the scene.
Image © Zane Taprell
While 'Can't Rush Greatness' may be the first full-length record to hit the stores and streaming platforms, Cench has a fairly extensive catalogue by modern day standards, consisting of two mixtapes, five EPs, and a whopping twenty seven singles.
This approach has clearly been premeditated to support the steady-grind mentality adopted by Cench; relying on regular releases of high-quality music with support of more than just a few side-quests outside of releasing music, further boosting his presence and building more and more hype.
Furthering this climb to the top of the proverbial pile is an understated ability for Cench to switch between more melodic, radio-friendly tracks such as 'Too Much' (another collaboration track featuring Jung Kook and Australia's own Kid LAROI) and aforementioned 'Sprinter', while reminding everyone he has bars on songs like 'Daily Duppy' and 'Chapters'.
Image © Zane Taprell
Staying true to form, this tour packs a mammoth set list with dozens – yes, you read that correctly, dozens – of his biggest hits spanning his short but impressive career. Having experienced my fair share of hip hop and rap sets from artists of Cench's calibre, there's a level of star power on display that puts many of his peers to shame.
Be it through the professionalism throughout the set, casually rolling from song to song, wasting minimal downtime with banter and bullsh.t, or his exceptional execution bucking the trend of relying heavily on vocal backing tracks to cover his performance.
Over the course of the evening, I could count on one hand the times this fantastic artist relied on a pre-recorded track to carry the songs, a display that unfortunately is far too common across other live performers.
Further to phenomenal record-quality performance, significant investment has been put into stage production to drive this artist's performance to a level (respectfully) expected at this point in his career.
Image © Zane Taprell
Be it the pyro used throughout the evening from the third track, 'Day In The Life' onwards, the moody and thematic washing of the stage in completely red or green lighting, comparatively subdued in comparison to the majority of the vibrant and bouncing production throughout the evening, and the spectacle of a main and secondary smaller stage connected by a bridge elevated across the heads of punters exploding in the mosh, the production value is used to fantastic effectiveness.
Throughout the evening there is a level of engagement with adoring fans that adds an additional element to the performance. Be it the decision to perform four or so songs atop the stage between both stages – bringing Cench incredibly close to his fans with but a metre or so between them – or similarly, the performance of some half-dozen tracks on a smaller stage outcropped amidst punters, the adoration seems be mutual and symbiotic in relationship.
Cench took filming duties on himself during his intimate time on the smaller stage with a fun Facetime moment wherein the giant screens – previously reserved for visuals to support the weary eyes of fans – featured shaky footage taken from the non-microphone hand of the rapper, humanising and encapsulating the attention of this rowdy crowd.
Image © Zane Taprell
Topping this portion of the evening off with a Nintendo DS selfie on behalf of some lucky punter, the UK rapper wants his fans to feel apart of the performance and experience, and has truly showcased how to do so without sacrificing a headline-worthy performance.
Managing to perform nearly 30 tracks just shy of 90 minutes, it's not until the last song of the evening where Cench takes more than a few seconds between songs; this time to humbly and genuinely show gratitude to his fans for the support they've continued to show him, particularly while being so far away from home.
With that said, he launches into a huge rendition of 'No Introduction' to round out his performance, and leave fans cheering and begging for more. After an evening of back-to-back-to-back banger after banger, Central Cee exits the stage with an energy eerily similar to that in which he entered.
As a music fan that has seen a wide spectrum of live performances with my fair-share of disappointing rap performances under their belt, this was not one of them. Central Cee has truly proven you can't rush greatness, and while we may have been waiting a hot minute to be graced by his presence again; it was well and truly worth it.
More photos from the concert.
