Big Daddy Kane didn’t expect UK rapper Kamanchi Sly to storm the stage while he was performing at a recent show, which almost led to the pair getting into a tussle.
The legendary rapper served as the headliner for a massive Hip Hop 50 event at London’s O2 Forum Kentish Town on Saturday (August 26), which included additional performances from Elzhi,Onyx,Masta Ace and others.
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In a video captured of the event, Kane can be seen spitting with ferocity to an energized crowd, before a masked rapper – who was later identified as Hijack member Kamanchi Sly – wanders onto the stage and simply stands in front of the cheering audience. Kane tolerates the interruption for a few moments but ends up stopping the music and confronting the masked agitator.
“You’re doing too much playboy,” Kane said as his security wandered out on stage to escort the rapper off. “I need the stage, you’re doing too much.”
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After gently trying to push Sly off, the rapper turns to him and confronts Kane to his face, saying something to which Kane replies: “That ain’t my fuckin’ problem.”
Sly continues to antagonize Kane, who at one point tries to take off his jacket and get ready to fight before his crew members come and diffuse the situation.
It’s unclear what exactly happened, but YouTube commenters who claimed to have been at the show wrote below the aforementioned video that Sly was upset that his group Hijack – a well-established rap group in the UK – kept getting bumped further down the show’s roster in favor of American acts.
Another alleged attendee wrote: “I heard they rolled up late and missed their spot. No one’s fault apart from Hijack. They got to the venue late and missed their spot. Kane was due to follow Masta Ace and that’s what he did. I heard Hijack missed the slot given to them before Masta Ace and then carried on like this. This is just what I heard.”
Thankfully, the pair didn’t end up fighting and the show went on as planned.
Kamanchi Sly, DJ Supreme, DJ Undercover, Ulysses, Agent Fritz and Agent Clueso formed Hijack in the late 1980s. They got a significant buzz following the release of their debut single “Style Wars” and was eventually signed by Ice-T to his label Rhyme Syndicate.
After extensively working on, and promoting their debut album The Horns of Jericho, the group struggled to release it after Ice-T’s song “Cop Killer” caught the attention of President George Bush and the FBI. Ice was forced to close Rhyme Syndicate records as a result of the controversy, but took steps to ensure Hijack ended up at Warner Bros, but the label only released The Horns Of Jericho in the UK, destroying their ambitions of international stardom.
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“What they did was they released the Hijack album in Britain and apparently didn’t feel the record sold enough there to merit it being sold in the United States,” Ice-T recalled in a previous interview with Rock the Bells. “Now, what number they needed, I was unaware of — I never knew and that conversation never came up to me until later.
“So it was a very disappointing moment to drop the Hijack album, do the videos, put ’em out, release it in the UK, and then have Warners decide they didn’t want it release it in the United States. That was it.”
