Music

‘We’re right picky,’ says Chew of the YoYo way. ‘We’re really horribly snotty, we just know what we like and what we don’t like. If commercial R&B and hip hop is going through a crap phase at that point, just don’t play it. We’re not snotty about it being commercial, we’re just snotty about it being good or bad.’This admirable attitude seems to have won over the cool people. Abouttabe conscious Muslim rapper Lupe Fiasco, whose ‘Daydream’ single with Jill Scott is due to assault the charts this week, chose YoYo as the venue for his UK debut, and he’s not the only member of the hip hop cognoscenti to have blessed YoYo with his presence.

‘We get all sorts of funny phone calls like, “Oh, can Justin Timberlake come, have you got a banquette?”. It’s like: “Have you been to Notting Hill Arts Club? It’s a bit of concrete with some speakers and a bar.”’ Feature continues

Kanye West apparently required no such special treatment. According to Seb, Kanye ‘came down and got busy with everyone. He just liked the music.’ Although you’d probably expect that if his own DJ was playing. Even Faith Evans, ex-Mrs Notorious BIG, has made the pilgrimage and, we’re assured, was just ‘dancing in the middle of the dancefloor’.

But far more important than the cool crowd is the normal crowd. As a low-key club at a small venue, YoYo relies on word of mouth to do its marketing, and as such it’s more interested in looking after the regulars than pleasing the industry. Lily Allen, who says that YoYo is her favourite club, thinks this is the best thing about it.

‘I remember when I did my first gigs,’ she says. ‘It was a bit fucked up because the record label people were all like, “We’re the most important, we need to get in” and Seb and Leo were going “Fuck them, it’s about the punters”. It’s heartbreaking when you’re in a queue and you see a bunch of cunts in suits walk straight through the door. Although saying that, I never queue!’

This attitude isn’t exclusive to YoYo, however – most of the other nights put on at the Notting Hill Arts Club share this free and easy spirit. As YoYo’s eclectic playlist and fundamentalist choice of guest turns show, clubs should be about music, and this is the primary concern of the NHAC. From Bombay Bronx’s supercolliding of hip hop, tabla beat and ‘Desi Divas’ to Death Disco’s freewheeling punky electro party, which is the best thing Alan McGee’s been involved with since Kevin Rowland’s ‘My Beauty’ album, nights at the NHAC are centred solely on interesting music. It’s one of the few clubs in London where you can roll up on spec without checking the listings and know you’ll hear something new and fascinating, although you should never expect to hear it again.

That the NHAC has been doing its thing for over ten years now shows that, despite all the pressure in the world to be cool, if you’re a music fan, you can basically do whatever you like and your crowd will go along with it… Well, that and the fact that there’s not much to do around Notting Hill.

One of the big advantages of living in London is having access to all the music in the world. The downside is that you really need people to whittle down some of the rubbish for you (a tip is to avoid anywhere that promises both ‘DJs’ and ‘stone-baked pizzas’ on the same night). The people at the NHAC recognise this, and let those who run its nights get on with it.

‘You have to take risks these days. Or it gets boring, doesn’t it?’ muses Seb. ‘That defeats the object of us doing it. I think you have to freak people out and clear a few dancefloors sometimes to keep it fresh.’

A normal YoYo, which you’re much more likely to get into, takes place at the Notting Hill Arts Club this Thursday, followed by the Carnival Special on Monday.