There’s a case to be made for Outlook being Dimension’s turnt up twin with its line-up gravitating away from the deep house of its more laid-back sibling and towards the belligerent sonics of grime, hip hop and dubstep. At this year’s Outlook the influence of jungle and sound system culture loomed particularly large with legends like The Bug, Goldie, Congo Natty, Zinc and Digital Mystikz ensuring that the bass levels were kept at chest-rattling, eardrum-perforating highs throughout. Grime was well represented by veterans like Flowdan, Logan Sama and Newham Generals as well a number of big names from the genre’s new school like Royal-T, Novelist and Big Narstie.
Lauryn Hill opened proceedings in Pula’s 2000-year-old amphitheatre remixing some of her Miseducation of Lauryn Hill classics to almost unrecognisable effect (you’ll understand our slight disappointment if you’ve read Noisey’s piece on to how cope with the emotional fallout of seeing Hill’s live performances). One of the weekend’s most fun performances came from Buraka Som Sistema, who recently released their third studio album Buraka. The Lisbon crew’s sped-up take on kuduro makes for the best music to lose your shit to – as evidenced by a crowd that was sweating their tits off trying to keep up with the ineffable energy of the group’s onstage antics.
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Another highlight was Queens’ finest gourmand and rapper Action Bronson, a last minute replacement for Busta Rhymes who had to cancel for what we’ll call “legal reasons” (long story). Bronson almost got into troubles of his own after flooring a stage invader at the end of “Easy Rider”. London bashment sound system Heatwave kept spirits high at 2am with a Sean Paul medley to wine to, the perfect soundtrack to close the festival with on Sunday night. Large up to Congo Natty who put on one of the wildest performances of the festival. Honourable mentions go out to Kaytranada, Oneman and Eliphino, who all held it down following crazy long queues.
If you were sober enough to make it on time to the harbour, the boat parties provided a welcome warm-up to the night’s festivities. London’s premier hip hop collective Livin’ Proof took the helm of one of Outlook’s cruisers to put the yacht into yacht rap. Noisey also commandeered a vessel of their very own for the weekend and, together with The Purist, played the best in R&B, hip hop, garage and grime this side of the Istria peninsula.
All in all, a solid showing from the Outlook family but don’t get FOMO looking through our photo gallery, instead get tickets to the reunion party on 27th September and pretend like you were there all along.
Photos credit: Dan Medhurst
