Dan le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip, Koko, London

Rapping rhymes are sheer poetry

First up, a confession. Until very recently, Dan le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip had slipped under my usually astute musical radar.

I'd heard "Thou Shalt Always Kill" and seen the De La edit video on YouTube. But subsequently, I'd mentally filed the pair away under "rap" – or even more shortsightedly "novelty rap". How wrong I was. Any preconceived notions were blown away when I listened to new album, The Logic of Chance. And I mean "listened to" not "heard".

Poet – for that's what he clearly is – Pip's pocket parables of all that's good and bad in 21st century Britain married to Dan's bang-on-the-money beats is already a real contender for album of the year. So a chance to catch them live? You bet.

The former Camden Theatre seems a particularly apt venue to witness the wordsmith paint his bittersweet lyrical portraits. The stalls are rammed with a sea of twentysomethings hanging on to each and every one of Pip's carefully chosen words. Plaid-shirt sporting Le Sac, rather than sullenly hunched over decks like your carbon-copy rap backing act, instead throws shapes throughout the performance as he deftly flits between Mac, keyboards, drum machine and all manner of electronic wizardry. Pip stalks the stage clad in skinny dark jeans, black shirt and grey tie topped off with a trucker cap as he espouses on anything from knife crime to teenage pregnancy. Together they make enough sound to fill the auditorium yet at no time do the beats drown out the lyrics. It's a tight performance that any of the carbon-copy US rap acts would be wise to witness – you don't need to shout incoherently over a drum machine ramped up to 11 to get your point across.

The set starts with the opening track from their first album, "Beat That My Heart Skipped", a gentle intro before the scattering beats of the first track off new album, "Sick Tonight", sends the first few rows into a moshing frenzy. This sets a pattern for the evening – new tracks weaved between old. The spartan stage has two easels – one with the band name, the other artwork from Logic, a couple of blocks that you might see at Speakers' Corner and an easy chair which Pip sits in for "Magician's Assistant", a moving tale about self-harm and how it affects everyone from mother and father to the sister of the protagonist: "The only role model she has now is little more than words engraved in granite". Tough subject for a song? No, life's not all about bubblegum pop – or as Pip states in "Thou Shalt...": "Guns, bitches and bling were never part of the four elements and never will be." Quite.

The ability to combine genuine entertainment with such incisive words of wisdom is a real talent and Dan le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip clearly have it in abundance. Ignore them at your peril.