Welsh rap collective Goldie Lookin Chain today announced a clutch of new dates for their 2021 UK tour. The Gwent outfit have added August gigs in Newcastle, Oxford and London to their itinerary for the year on top of nine rescheduled shows which had initially been planned for the group’s twentieth anniversary tour (2000-2020). Prior to the cancellation of those shows last year, band member Rhys Hutchings (also known by the monikers Zardoz, P Xain and Dwain Xain Zedong) told the NME that their touring commitments would be “…the hardest thing I’ve had to do since my Duke of Edinburgh Award when I was 15 years old.”
Newcastle, Oxford, London… pic.twitter.com/9ErCBrE0mn
— goldie lookin chain (@theGLC) January 8, 2021
The comedy hip-hop troupe burst into the charts in 2004 with four UK Top 40 singles, Half Man Half Machine; Your Mother’s Got A Penis; You Knows I Loves You; and the most successful of the set, Guns Don’t Kill People Rappers Do, a crudely Newportonian critique of US hip hop which reached number #3 in the Official UK Singles Chart. Their memorably-titled 2004 album Greatest Hits, released in America as Straight Outta Newport, was also a surprise hit in the Official UK Albums Chart, reaching #5. They would go on to secure another top 20 single the following year with Your Missus Is A Nutter, which featured an unexpected sample from French composer Serge Gainsbourg.
The GLC were already an underground sensation in Newport prior to their rise to national prominence, thanks in no small part to their ingeniously labyrinthine website. The site includes a bespoke dictionary and reference guide, and a print-out Top Trumps page ranking celebrities and public figures (including the late Paul Flynn MP, who was once dubbed the group’s ‘spiritual leader’ by fellow Newport MP Jessica Morden) according to how ‘safe’ they are.
While the band may never have fully replicated the commercial success they enjoyed in the mid-noughties, they have been reliably prolific: since 2005’s number #16 charting LP Safe As Fuck, they have produced some 16 albums, EPs and mixtapes; including a triple bill in 2019 (Greatest Hits 3, The Adam Hussain Show and Original Pyrite Material).
Last year the group also released a topical festive track, Covid Christmas, which Wales Online described as a “dark but hilarious” take on Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody. The song received an unexpected plug on social media from Flavor Flav, formerly the definitive hype-man for rap legends Public Enemy (who Goldie Lookin Chain had themselves had paid homage to with their 2017 release Fear of a Welsh Planet.)
Flavor Flav knows it! pic.twitter.com/jHUEZb12qo
— goldie lookin chain (@theGLC) December 4, 2020
Later this year GLC stalwart Adam Hussain will also be taking on judging duties for Gwent’s Got Talent, an online talent competition in aid of St David’s Hospice. Speaking about his new role to the South Wales Argus, Hussain threw down a light-hearted gauntlet to another well-known talent show judge, saying: “I’m always interested in what local talent we have in Gwent and believe in supporting our home-grown future stars. Amanda Holden does it regularly and I don’t really know what she did to qualify for the position apart from going out with Les Dennis.”
The full list of dates for Goldie Lookin Chain’s 2021 Tour Is As Follows:
09/04 – Aberystwyth – Aberystwyth Arts Centre
10/04 – Porthcawl – Grand Pavilion
16/04 – Llandudno – The Arena, Venue Cymru
07/05 – Leeds – The Warehouse
08/05 – Birmingham – The Mill
15/05 – Narberth – Queens Hall
28/05 – Swansea – Sin City
29/05 – Cardiff – Tramshed
26/06 – Newport – Newport Centre
14/08 – Newcastle – O2 Academy2
20/08 – Oxford – O2 Academy2
21/08 – London – O2 Academy, Islington
