Live Review: Carmouflage Rose, Lil Spacely, Savilian

Those who made it up to the Lansdowne's live room early enough were treated to a set from Savilian. The central coast rapper performed before a small but enthusiastic audience, giving as much as you'd expect from a headliner at a huge show. Closing with Like That, Savilian and his henchman were the ultimate hype team, getting everyone moving and ready for what was to come.

Punters waited, eager to see hip-hop artist Lil Spacely take to the stage in his hometown. Joined on stage by his DJ and a few other rappers, Lil Spacely let the crowd know how great they looked and won over new fans, impressing them with his energetic deliverance of tracks like You Know It and the hooky DopeBoy.

For some, it was hard to know what to expect from headliner Carmouflage Rose. The rising Brisbane hip-hop artist who's becoming increasingly known as part of the new wave of Australian rappers only has two official songs on Spotify. His first single Late Nights, however, has over six million plays on the streaming platform and currently features on playlists such as All Hip Hop and R&B Connect.

Wearing dark shades, the Zimbabwe-born artist walked on stage, opening with latest single Wildflowers, which immediately had everyone singing along. The rest of his set was missing the tropical, chilled-out beats that characterise his two singles; instead, it was full of fast, energetic hip-hop beats and heavy, electronic dance breaks.

He seemed more than comfortable on stage as he poured water into the crowd, brought fans up on stage with him and requested the lights of the Lansdowne be turned off - preferring the crowd use their phone torches to illuminate the venue. The rapper incorporated some of Cardi B's Bodak Yellow and some of Kanye West's Black Skinhead into his set, which only further hyped everyone up.

As fans got rowdy moving to the tracks, the artist told everyone, "You don't let anyone push you around, you make room for yourself, you stand your ground". A "one more song" chant broke out, but the crowd already knew they'd get an encore as there was one song that hadn't been played yet. All phones went up and cheers erupted as the beat of Late Nights started and Carmouflage Rose came back out, dancing along to his hit.

Carmouflage Rose, who recently signed to Sony Music, proved himself as one to watch and an artist very much capable of cracking the US market.