Additional reporting by Oscar Williams and Michael Allen
It’s not unusual to see Islington swarming with Guardian-reading, privately educated couples with a theatre programmes nestled under their arms on a Monday night. But in a greying building on the corner of King’s Cross there is a burgeoning jungle of hip hop, street dance, urban music and twerking.
Queueing alongside girls in nine-inch heels and crop tops, and guys in baggy trousers and snapback caps, three awkward-looking Islington Now reporters were organising their notes and dividing up their pens.
BUSTY
This is what happened when three hip-hop virgins, more used to James Blunt than Cypress Hill, went along to a party in memory of rapper Notorious B.I.G, who was shot dead 17 years ago.
In an attempt to fit in, our very own Oscar, Sanya and Michael feasted on the ‘Atomic’ chicken wings being served up in an anteroom to the main hall, courtesy of The House of Wings at Dee Dee’s. The heat from these extra spicy wings nearly reduced Oscar to tears, an ominous omen for the rest of the evening’s raucous activities.
STRANGE
The dull thud of the bass surrounded us, and clutching our cans of Red Stripe, we pushed open the doors to the main hall, where a photo shoot of busty girls was taking place on the boxing ring shaped stage. Next came a ‘Step Up’ style dance-off between two groups of kids, aged between 5 and 18. Some of them looked as though they should have been in bed hours ago, but these kids were not messing around. They busted out moves to rival famous dance troupe Diversity, one of which involved the oldest kid lifting the youngest into the air and ‘shooting’ the other team with an imaginary gun. 
But this display of youthful talent was in no way a violent promotion of gang culture. It was, as the presenter explained, a way for kids to stay off the street and do something creative with their free time.
THRUST
Next up was a producer battle. The music was good, but there was nothing to watch unless you really enjoy seeing two people stand still bent over a laptop for 15 minutes. The MC battle afterwards was far more entertaining, although it got off to an awkward start when the first contestant fell flat on his face. The plump fellow had attempted to open the battle in style by leaping onto the stage like a ninja- sadly he ended up looking more like a dead fish. His blushes were only spared when he pulled out every amateur break-dancer’s go-to move: the ‘caterpillar’. The two rappers went on to trade vicious verbal blows, which predictably included several hilarious examples of ‘your mum’ jokes. The evening took a drastic change of pace when the only two white contestants of the event got on stage for an acoustic rendition of Notorious B.I.G’s ‘Big Poppa’. Imagine, if you will, Cliff Richard singing the lyrics: “If you got a gun up in your waist please don’t shoot up the place / ‘Cause I see some ladies tonight who should be havin’ my baby.” A girl who looked about 14 thrust herself around the stage with gusto, but the prize went to a Jonas Brother lookalike who strummed a guitar and sang. He stole her crown as reigning champion, and the audience were united to worship their newly crowned singing king of Scala. Finally, the twerk-off was announced. There was pandemonium as three curvy girls blinged-out in hip-hop style clothes took to the stage. One sported an extravagant head-to-toe striped outfit, which gave the impression she had washed her clothes after leaving a pack of highlighters in her pocket.
PAINFUL
The contest saw bums shaking and limbs flailing as the two girls sought to out-twerk one another. During the last round, our reporter Michael was dragged on stage and used as a gawky, reluctant human prop for the girls’ vigorous thrusting. His eyes filled with tears of pain as they slammed their bootylicious behinds down repeatedly onto his crotch. When the action was all over, the guests shuffled up the red-lit stairs to the after party, where more twerking ensued, this time without such a competitive edge.
Downstairs in the basement smoking area, Islington Now met some of the crew. Skinnyman, a well-known grime artist from Holloway, told us: “The recent word of ‘twerk’ has only come to public media attention because Hannah Montana’s doing it, you know? It’s something that’s been going on for over ten years.”
For Skinnyman, TheJumpOff was a genuine display of cultural expression.
“I wouldn’t say that anybody from a poetic society would be turning their nose up to rap,” he said. “I think if anything they’d be celebrating the acceptance of poem in an urban form.
“They [JumpOff] gave a platform to a movement that needed a platform to express itself and that’s under the urban umbrella and the culture of hip hop – and under that umbrella I suppose comes dance in the break-dance and crew dance battle mode.”
Two regulars at Scala, Barry “B Sharp”, 30, and Sean “Special S” McKenzie, 33, defended Miley Cyrus’ prolific booty-shaking. Sean argued “Twerking is impartial to colour, It doesn’t care who you are. I think she’s nice.”
Barry, who’s been coming to JumpOff events for over 10 years, added: “Twerking used to be known as the Booty-Battle. It’s gotten more popular because of technology – it’s easier to spread the word. It’s nice to see regulars and new faces coming along.”
But when we asked artist and fellow regular attendee Ben Francis about twerking, he looked as if Islington Now had just spat into his beer.
“Hip hop ain’t twerking,” he said. “That’s an afro-caribbean thing. It’s not a fashion thing but they [Miley Cyrus] made it a thing.”
Out of the crowd of around 200, only 5 people – including our 3 reporters – were white. The two others were a couple in their thirties, Kelly and city worker Mike Jones. Kelly proudly told us she had been “into twerking before Miley Cyrus” and that she “twerks along with music videos”. It was the first time they had come along to Scala, and husband Mike explained he was expecting it “to be a lot like ‘Step Up 2’”.
So after our night of madness, what was Islington Now’s professional assessment? Much better than the 1999 Steps concert we went to. In fact, we’ll certainly be coming back again. Even Michael.
More stories in our twerking series:
