‘Just enough time to find yourself’ was the theme of BAC’s Hourglass festival put on by the Young Producers last week. By the end of Friday night (and before Christian had found a full-page photo of himself in the Daily Telegraph) Talent Scene seemed not only to find themselves but also a room full of talented singers, guitarists, spoken word artists and emcees all performing in an intimate setting while getting performance videos with studio quality sound recordings getting made for them.

At 5 o clock Christian and Jamel (Talent Scene) arrived at BAC with:

Studio Monitors, MIC, Mic stand, Pop shield, XLR, Headphones, Audio Interface, Laptop & Power Supply, camera for filming/photography, shoulder harness a selection of instrumentals already downloaded, banners, business cards and flyers.

Looking the part, and feeling excited with our new hoodies on our backs we dressed the space with some help from Monir from the Scratch Bar hanging the new 2 metre Talent Scene banner above the curtained arch-entrance to the meeting room of BAC, moving the furniture round and rearranging the space so that the 15-Years of BAC scratch exhibit became the backdrop to the scratch of Talent Scene’s Open-Mic lounge style studio session.

From 6-8pm the room was being predominantly hosted by one of the artists who has been involved in Talent Scene before it became Talent Scene, Marc D, an incredible young rapper who you can check out here on the Talent Scene website, up and running for your appreciation and engagement. As well as this Jamel’s younger sisters were getting involved with some improvised raps about their family and occasionally augmenting the instrumentals with piano parts on the opportunely recruited clavinova that would later become the centre of the most incredible freestyle session with Ramon on the keys and Kian hammering out drum beats.

At about 9 things really kicked off. Jamel and myself went and flyered the audience leaving IAMNEXT, dense with artists, musical enthusiasts and poets who eagerly found themselves in the now warm (in temp. and hospitality) meeting room where artists were making themselves visible and taking it in turns to share works while getting videos made. Everyone who came up chatted to Christian about Talent Scene and its intention to make portfolios for emerging artists and left their details so he could send them their performance videos. The buzz was palpable and soon most of the festival producers were sticking their heads in and ferrying stray artists from the Beatbox Academy and the open MIC in the Bees Knees who would benefit from the exposure and atmosphere.

The next day speaking to Jamel and Christian they were glowing with the after-effect of the whole event, the possibilities of the night and the impact it had had on the artists they were working with. These impacts are still being felt, and will continue to do so as we prepare for Talent Scene’s showcase at Y.E.S. @ Providence House tomorrow (Thur 2nd April), performance at Strive festival at the Southbank and reflect on the successes and difficulties of Cycle 2 while putting in place stepping stones to the future and where else Talent Scene can hang a banger, beneath which budding artists can grow.