In case you haven’t noticed, there is currently a nineties pop culture revival going on. The savvy team at Academy Nightclub cottoned on to this fact and booked Grammy Award-winning American hip-hop trio, Naughty by Nature.
I arrived at Academy at about 11:30pm and was surprised by the relatively empty club. Fast-forward an hour later and the club was almost filled to capacity, with fans anticipating the arrival of the main act.
Naughty by Nature hit the stage just after 1am and brought the club and the crowd to life with a set planned to perfection, including a mix of crowd favourites, ‘OPP’ and ‘Holiday’, as well as new single, ‘Get to Know Me Better’ from their first album in over a decade, Anthem Inc.
Naughty by Nature interacted extensively with the audience, including a ‘Name that Hip Hop Tune’ pop quiz, chanting the ‘Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi,’ cry, and sampling ‘I Still Call Australia Home’.
The band also abruptly ceased playing to ensure the safety of a young woman in the audience who had collapsed, as well as offering calming words to a group of slightly revved up audience members gearing up for a fight. This interaction indicated the attention Naughty by Nature paid to personalising the set as well as their concern for the safety of audience members to guarantee everyone had a good time.
The evening’s last song, ‘Hip-Hop Hooray’, brought pure joy to the crowd who sang along word for word. There were also a few lucky audience members who were invited by the boys to join them on stage and dance their little hearts out.
The Naughty by Nature set was a pure celebration of nineties hip hop and proved that after twenty-three years, they still have it!
Photography by Chris Whitfield
