City centre food hall, supermarket and entertainment space Hello Oriental is hosting a huge Hip Hop Karaoke event later this year to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the beloved music genre. Hip hop, karaoke and scran? Dreamland stuff.
Serving up everything from pan-Asian street food to fresh baked goods, cocktails and more, Hello Oriental is now mixing up its already stellar lineup of Sunday brunch events for 2023 with this cool live music new concept — and you know full well you’re getting involved.
Hip Hop Karaoke, founded by DJ Rob Pursey with host Bobby Champagne Jr and a team of seasoned hip-hop aficionados, has helped thousands live out their rap fantasies over the last decade.
After first launching at Boxpark in London back in 2001 and appearing at numerous festivals and venues worldwide, these two hip-hop pros are now bringing the renowned brand to Manchester to celebrate 50 years since the genre took the music world by storm back in the ’70s.
Credit: The Manc Group
Taking place on the popular Circle Square spot on Sunday, 1 October 2023, there’ll be hundreds of songs to choose from. Whether it’s old-school bangers from the 80s and 90s, or the latest joints from Drake, J. Cole or Kendrick Lamar, there’ll be something in the playlist for your to belt out.
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‘Regulate’, Nate Dogg and Warren G is our pick — simply has to be done.
Describing what you can expect from the event, co-founder Pursey, says: “Hip Hop Karaoke is a euphoric, addictive experience and definitely something to cross off the bucket list. It’s your chance to experience what it’s like to feel real crowd energy as they take on the rhymes of their favourite rappers.”
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If you weren’t sold already, here’s what a typical Hip Hop Karaoke night looks like:
Hip Hop Karaoke will obviously be prioritising getting people on their feet early doors and making sure brunchers get up on stage to deliver their flawless bars in front of their adoring fans, but there’ll also be the usual food and drink vendors available on the day.
From noodles, Chinese roasts with rice, bao buns, dumplings and countless other items on the menu, you’ll be as spoilt for choice on food as you will be with the tunes.
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Tickets go on sale from 20 August and you can sign up for the mailing list to hear about the first release and to make sure your name is first on the karaoke call sheet.
As for how long this party is going to go on, well, that’s up to you now, isn’t it?
Featured Image — The Manc Group/Hip Hop Karaoke (via Instagram)
Eats
New Manchester restaurant receives rave review as another is slammed as ‘torture’
Daisy Jackson
Pip, a new restaurant in Manchester, has received a rave national review this week – a review which slammed another restaurant in the same feature.
Food critic William Sitwell wrote in his review in The Telegraph that Pip is charming, refined, and fabulous.
“Bravo, Pip. Pip pip!” he wrote in the glowing write-up on the new restaurant, which stands at the foot of the new Treehouse Hotel and has the acclaimed Mary-Ellen McTague at its helm.
Sitwell’s Telegraph review particularly raved about dishes including Lancashire hot pot (‘fabulously good’), a wild garlic soup (‘a gorgeous thing’), and an apple trifle (‘a gift from heaven’).
But while it was all good for Pip, there were significantly less positive adjectives heaped on another restaurant in Manchester.
In fact, he said that Pip is ‘a great-value tonic’ for the ‘brash (and pricey) torture’ across town.
That restaurant was KAJI, formerly known as MUSU, which he said was ‘all tummies, bald heads, tattoos and heat’.
Sitwell said that while the service and sashimi are good at KAJI, the ‘place is afflicted by some overbearing cooking that cheapens the noble name of Japanese cuisine’.
He wrote: “Lamb chops fail the tender test and are properly wrecked sitting on a vulgar pond of sticky “tomato ponzu”. No beast should die to have that stuff squirted anywhere near it.
“And Kaji is a Japanese gaff without sake. Which is like opening a British pub in Tokyo and forgetting to put an ale on tap.”
Sharing the review, Pip wrote: “Thankyou @telegraph and @williamsitwell for the fantastic feature. We’re so proud of our team here.”
Milk Maids, Bolton – The family-run ice cream parlour on an award-winning farm
Daisy Jackson
Ice cream doesn’t come much fresher than those served at Milk Maids – in fact, you’ll be standing right on the family farm where the cows that produce the milk live, as you tuck into your scoop.
This unassuming dairy farm in Bolton has been in operation for decades, and in the same family for generations.
But it’s when sisters Fiona and Rebecca saw the full potential of all that award-winning milk being produced on their farm that Milk Maids was born.
This ice cream parlour on Dearden’s Farm in Over Hulton is now one of the hottest spots in Greater Manchester, especially when the weather is similarly hot.
Every month they release a whole batch of flavours, all made fresh daily (you can literally see Fiona legging it across the yard with buckets of milk to make fresh batches), with May specials including white chocolate and sea salt caramel, raspberry cookie, and passionfruit pavlova.
Milk Maids, Bolton – The family-run ice cream parlour on an award-winning farm
Cones can be filled with molten chocolate or pistachio creme before your ice cream is scooped and pressed into the cone.
Or you can have your chosen flavour whizzed up into a milkshake, served in a milk bun, or presented in an insulated take-home box for later.
We could wax lyrical about how good this ice cream is, but the queues really do speak for themselves, and you should go and get in it right now.