JAY-Z, Dizzee Rascal and Stormzy make rap 'history' at V Festival

All wearing white, JAY-Z , Dizzee Rascal and Stormzy transformed the UK’s V Festival into a rapper’s paradise over the weekend.

JAY flew to the Chelmsord site in a $80million army helicopter – even borrowing bullet-proof vehicles to get from the heli-pad to the stage on Sunday before closing the weekend with a triumphant performance on the Supervene stage at Hylands Park.

But the first, and youngest, of the rap trio to please the V crowd was Stormzy, who promised to “f**k things up”.

Last year, the 24-year-old star was called in as a last minute V Festival replacement act and early on in his set yesterday he admitted he had been waiting to return “all f**king year.”

Stormzy, who released his debut album ‘Gangs Signs and Rappers’ at the beginning of 2017, insisted “Grime needs to be on the mainstage every year” and asked the crowd to help him out and dance even if they didn’t now the words, acknowledging that his songs haven’t had the longevity of JAY’s or Dizzee’s.

“We’re going to cause history today, if you don’t know the words to the song, you’re going to dance.”

But that didn’t mean people weren’t ecstatic to see him, and he was fully supported by his Love Island “brothers” Chris and Kem. Stormzy also teased the release of his new music video for ‘Cigarettes and Kush’ and invited Lethal Bizzle on stage.

But it was Dizzee who drew the biggest crowd of the day before JAY’s arrival, and he was surprisingly booked for the MTV stage – not the main stage.

Music fans were able to enjoy anough of Ellie Goulding, before flocking to the other side of the festival for Dizzee’s banger-filled set.

He was barely audible over the screaming fans, who couldn’t get enough of his huge catalogue of tunes including Dance With Me, Fix Up and Baseline Junkie and he returned to his Grime roots with tracks from his latest album Raskit.

Finally, if Stormzy and Dizzee weren’t enough to satiate even the most hardcore rap lover, they couldn’t deny JAY Z smashed it on the main stage as darkness descended over V.

The star was booked for 9:15 and arrived just late enough to build a buzz in the crowd, and he said he was “so excited” to be there and revealed he first performed in the UK in 1989. He added: “I really appreciate it, every single one you standing in the rain hanging with us. Right now I want to take you back to where I’m from for second. I’m from Brooklyn.”

Nice guy JAY whizzed through a career-spanning set that included ‘Empre State Of Mind,’ ‘Hustler,’ ‘Big Pimpin’ and ‘N***s In Paris’, and paid a touching tribute to Chester Bennington with a rendition of their 2004 Linkin Park collaboration ‘Numb/Encore’, after asking the crowd “Can I get some love for Chester tonight?” before asking them to “make some noise so he can hear you in heaven”.

We were all waiting for JAY to address his spat with Kanye West on stage, however he’d explained his side of the feud in an interview with Rap Radar Popdcast earlier in the week.

All he said on stage in front of the crowd was, “You know I ain’t got time to be arguing with your arse” and we’re pretty sure that was just an (appropriate) line in his song, so we won’t read into it.

Needless to say, all our rap dreams were made at V Festival and we can’t to return next year. Perhaps for a dreamy Taylor Swift, Katy Perry and Rita Ora pop extravaganza.

Big thanks also to Gordon’s Gin for the pink stuff and Tape London for keeping us watered with their lovely generosity.