What led to the song being banned in clubs isn’t fully clear – but Bizzle thinks a fight broke out when Pow! was played at one venue, and the news spread. It happened again, and again.
DJs started sending him photos of signs in booths warning them to not play the track.
Then some of his shows even started getting pulled, including one in Leicester after police warned that the club could lose its live licence if it was allowed to go ahead, Bizzle recalls.
“Then I was like this is actually really serious, actually getting out of hand.”
At the time clubs in London were required to fill out a form when hosting events with DJs and MCs. It included the question “is there a particular ethnic group attending?” – which was dogged by accusations of racism.
Police said it curbed gun crime at clubs and played a role in reducing serious violence – but even though the ethnicity clause was removed in 2008, the form targeted a disproportionate number of events by black and Asian artists and was eventually retired.
Bizzle remembers how efforts to suppress his music started falling away after top music magazine NME compared Pow! to Sex Pistols’ God Save the Queen.
“Once in a generation, a record comes along that causes people to sit bolt upright, a rallying cry to the masses, a barometer of social discontent that turns venues into mosh-crazed riots,” the review read.
Festivals then started booking Bizzle and he played packed out shows at Reading & Leeds.
Jay-Z rapped over the Pow! instrumental. There were even discussions about the US superstar featuring on an official remix of the song.
Memphis Bleek, a rapper close to Jay-Z, confirmed on a podcast this year that a version was recorded but never released.
By 2010, the song was making waves on the streets of London again.
Tens of thousands of students were protesting against an increase of the cap on tuition fees. On 10 December, just a stone’s throw from Big Ben, a sound system was set up and protesters started playing Pow! The crowd went wild.
