Angel Haze proves she is one to watch at the Hoxton Bar & Kitchen

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Last night, Michigan-born Angel Haze made her UK debut at London’s Hoxton Square Bar and Kitchen, and while she didn’t quite blow the room away, the 21-year-old rapper certainly proved why she had her choice of major label contracts before settling on a deal with Island about 2 months ago.

Despite her relative lack of live experience (on this side of the pond at least), Haze seemed completely at ease throughout the brief set. Brief being the operative word: the show barely broke the 30 minute mark, during which time two tracks were performed twice, to the crowd’s bemusement. It’s not particularly unusual for new acts to offer blink-and-you-miss-them headline slots early in their careers. But what’s interesting in Haze’s case is that she doesn’t lack the material: she has a wealth of interesting, genre-defying tracks at her disposal from her two mixtapes to date – The Voice EP and Reservation.

Most striking in their absence were the softer, more introspective forays into spoken word (such as ‘Heart’ or ‘This Is Me’) that pepper the mixtapes, resulting in a more straightforward and uptempo set than might have been expected. The Ellie Goulding-sampling ‘Starry Eyed’ and a new reworking of Missy Elliott’s ‘Gossip Folks’ demonstrated Haze’s spectacular breath-defying rhymes, but didn’t quite connect with crowd.

Predictably the highlights of the night were her two recent internet-conquering singles, ‘Werkin’ Girls’ and ‘New York’. For the aggressive ‘Werkin’ Girls’, Haze invited anyone in the crowd who identified as such to make their way on to stage to dance as she effortlessly unleashed her foul-mouthed deluge, while for the latter the rapper descended into the enthusiastically chanting crowd as she delivered her impressive ode to the Big Apple.

Not quite a star-making performance then, but one to watch for sure.

By Odhran O’Donoghue