Around 2 years ago, hip-hop nights started popping up around the major northern cities. At first they were very exclusive and tough to get into but generally fun and a massive change to the what every other night in town was: dubstep / indie / motown.

I moved to Manchester in late 2011 and they had started to take over in the Northern Quarter. Nowadays, every bar round there plays it on every weekend night, non-stop, the same songs. Californiaaaaaa knows how to party. And if you don’t know, now you know… Ooh baby baby, baby baby. All those exact same songs every night.

And yet still, despite the predictability of it, everyone seems to react with that same “WAAAAAAAYYY I haven’t heard this in AAAAAGES!!! Woooooohhhh!” and does that face where they’re pretending to be a rapper in a music video, ironically doing the dance moves and stuff. And the girls do it too. Like pretend-aggressive bump and grinding.

I’m not being a kill-joy. For the first year or so I could sort of enjoy it and laugh along with them. But the novelty’s gone now. I expect everyone to know every lyric to NWA songs. It’s no longer a surprise that Paul from IT is gettin down n dirty on the dancefloor when Fuck Da Police comes on.

Also - I do go to other places, but I can't not go to these bars cos everyone at work has their nights there. Every weekend is a birthday. Every weekend is oldskool hippidy hop. Zzz.