Coco Jones has Left her Stamp on London Roundhouse

Sultry and sexy songstress Coco Jones graced the stage of Roundhouse last week, wrapping up her Why Not More? tour on the renowned London venue stage. This being her debut album meant that there was a lot of anticipation from the audience, with the venue being filled to the brim with loud cheers and excited fans. 

New York born and bred rapper Lady London opened for her fellow collaborator with her distinct contemporary hip-hop flow, inspired from her poetic history and experiences. This was a perfect supporting act, with both of their sounds working in synergy and therefore introducing some unfamiliar members of the audience to her unique melody. She was received well, with a great enthusiasm from the moment she was on stage until the moment that she departed. 

Before the vocal powerhouse sang us through her set list, she greeted the crowd with a brief introduction behind the project, concluding with:

“You should always ask yourself ‘Why Not More?’ If I can make my dreams come true then so can you.”

From the onset, there was an element of comfort and intimacy in the space, created by a combination of her buttery vocals alongside her warmth and kindness towards her supporters. This was definitely an energy that’s hard to curate, particularly in such a large and open space like Roundhouse. It felt like she was performing to just 150 of us, not over 1500. 

There was a pleasant surprise with the way Coco opened the show with her song Taste, mixed into her own rendition of Destiny Child’s Cater 2 U. Though I enjoy listening to covers during an artist's performance, particularly with artists I may not be as familiar with, it did feel like this was a bit too early in the set list to go down the nostalgic route. With her project only having been released in April of this year, I would’ve appreciated focussing on the heavy hitters of that instead. She also did an interpolation of Britney Spears’ Toxic on the song itself, which almost felt like a 00’s overload. One thing is clear: that paying homage to her musical predecessors is very important avenue in her music.

The best thing about going to an artist’s show that you’re not as familiar with is the fact that you manage to go home with a bunch of new playlisted songs. Calibre was one I had to immediately add to my US R&B playlist (don’t ask why my R&B is regionally separated!)

The set design was wonderfully curated, with two back up dancers matching the colour themes of Jones and beautifully engaging graphics which worked well with the alluring R&B vocals lead by our Roundhouse headliner. For most R&B concerts, I don’t expect much from the dancers and choreography. I appreciated the fact that her support on stage was perfectly in sync with the music and the moves that Coco was showing us, which definitely raises the bar for how an R&B concert should be.

Performance highlights for me included her performing Love So Big, Thang 4 U and On Sight. I don’t doubt that international artists love coming to the UK to perform because it really activates our childhood muscle memory of singing in unison during assembly at primary school. On Sight had the whole building singing to the top of their lungs and harmonising as if they were also joining Coco on stage themselves. I loved being able to witness her unexpectedly transitioning into her iconic BET Awards Usher Tribute Performance with There Goes My Baby nearer to the close of the show. She brought a fan on stage to dance and sing to - I felt as flustered as the guy on stage did! 

It was a very confident and bold decision to tour a venue that large with such a compact discography. This was reflected in the length of her set time, she came on at 9pm and was off the stage by 10.10pm. It was definitely refreshing to attend a show that actually was running to the proposed set times, without any compromise of quality. 

One thing I noticed was the number of times she came off stage during the show, despite the relatively short set time. This gave room for interludes, as performed by the dancers - but interestingly enough there wasn’t room for outfit changes. I usually expect an artist to come off stage and return with something new about their outfit or appearance, but there were about 4 departures where she returned looking the exact same. She disappeared about an hour in and came back out with long flowy red sleeves on top of her figure hugging red number to perform a ballad in front of a wind machine for the close of the show.

This show was inclusive in many ways, including the fact that there was a sign language interpreter at the side of the stage, accurately translating all of her lyrics to those who may have been harder of hearing. It’s important to make concerts more accessible where you can, there is more to experience than just what you hear and I think this was a great move from Coco Jones’ team to make sure that no fan is not considered during this tour.

Coco closed the show with arguably her most popular and grammy-winning song Here We Go. You could tell that this tour meant a lot to Jones as there were multiple moments during the show where she started to well up. She even regularly expressed gratitude to all those who support her, which is touching and rare for us to see from stars of her level of success. An emotional departure from the stage was an understatement, as she closed the show by shouting out her family and team, of which none of this could have happened without them. 

Despite not being new to making music, Coco Jones is definitely one to watch and the release of the album and tour is about to catapult her into serious stardom.