Natty @ The Academy

The Boss Sounds Festival is the UK’s biggest reggae festival so it is a must play event for any rising star of reggae, especially one promoting a new single. Natty is that man. When he is on stage dancing with his acoustic guitar and dreadlocks flailing it is easy to see why he some are hailing him as the new Bob Marley. Personally, I wouldn’t agree with this and I’m fairly sure Natty wouldn’t either.
He came in to the industry by being a tea boy then a studio engineer for various indie bands so there is no questioning his current place in the music world or the fact he was just below Easy Star All Stars in the bill to finish the festival.
When I met him earlier in the day, he had just come from a sold out show in Bristol and seemed pretty run down from working hard (or just unimpressed to meet a student radio DJ – you decide) but none of that came across on stage. The songs were all in perfect order adding sing-a-longs and introductions where necessary. His performance of Bedroom Eyes had everyone (myself included) singing it for the rest of the evening. Of course you would expect nothing less but on top of this Natty has a rare gift. He can make every single person in the crowd feel like he is looking at them and them alone. It makes his female fan base strong in numbers but weak at the knees. He has said himself that people struggle to place him in a genre but he’s also bright enough to know this only a good thing and the only place he really needs to be is on stage to prove his worth.
The best I can do to sum him up is quote a young man from Natty’s MySpace page. Callum tells us that his girlfriend has just left us and he is skint but he listens to Man Like I and “it reminds [him] of the wonderful summer [he] had that [Natty] was part of”. I don’t think any reggae fans are going to get too overexcited about him but some certainly will.

Review by Alec Falconer