Now finally my hometown of Middlesbrough seems to be picking up as a place for some hip-hop activity. Tonight world DJ champ DJ Cash Money makes his return to the Middlesbrough Arena (which appears to be re-emerging as a damn fine music venue, my favourite classy dive, you might say) in some serious style. Not only that but as Cash Money himself pointed out half way through a pretty powerful set;

"SHIIIT man! All you folks in Middlesbrough, I love you guys, it feels good to be back! I came down here a while back, and this time it looks like y’all tripled in numbers, I’m gonna give you a big shout out on Westwood tomorrow!" [That’d be Tim Westwood on Radio 1, and indeed he did.]

He was right, I was there for his last performance, and the crowd is huge this time, the performance easily rises to the numbers of people there.

Then came a little session of breaking from one or two guys, with windmilling and a touch of head spinning too. The night was a great collection of commercial hip-hop, some funk, some reggae and some nice ragga, not to mention incredible skills in the beat-juggling and scratching department from CM himself. Booyah!