Academy, Newcastle
After pioneering grime with his Roll Deep crew (which included Dizzee Rascal and Tinchy Stryder), Wiley's 2008 No 2 hit Wearing My Rolex went overground but alienated his fanbase. Since then, the 32-year-old has seemed variously unsure what to do with his success or sabotaging it entirely. His recent history is of disowning his hits, ruckuses with record labels, spats with other MCs and, last summer, giving away hours of unreleased music. This Elusive Tour – named after his forthcoming album and low profile – was shifted from last autumn to coincide with the new album, which, inevitably, still hasn't come out.
Yet his wild moodswings have always inspired creativity, though even Wiley watchers accustomed to raps about shootings and pies may be bemused by his latest apparent reinvention, as a ladies man. "Where are the laydeez?" he grins, often, even though many of the "laydeez" in the Academy's smaller upstairs venue look young enough to be Girl Guides.
Otherwise, the gig is a microcosm of Wiley's mindset. Songs erupt after heated discussions around laptops; one new one is abandoned midway after Wiley decides, "I'm not ready to do that". At times he defers to other rappers and is barely on the stage. At one point, he interrupts a song to champion feminism, which is rather rudely undermined when one of his pals delivers a naughty rap involving laydeez' bottoms.
It's a shambles, but weirdly compulsive, especially as Wiley displays the dizzying rapid-fire mic skills that made his name. Take That, from 2009, takes blistering potshots at anyone who thinks Wiley's force is spent, but provides fuel for the doubters when he bizarrely switches it to a chant of "Oggy oggy oggy, oi oi oi!"