The “forbidden” song that caused chaos on the dance floor

“The reaction was so crazy. I’ve never seen a reaction to a song like this in the club,” Lethal Bizzle told the BBC.

Each time, grime artist’s debut single Pow! blasted through UK nightclub speakers in the early 2000s, it was chaos on the dance floor.

Adrenaline fueled clubbers pushed and bumped into each other. Drinks flew through packed, sweaty venues late into the night.

“Basically, people were having fun mosh-pitting – very normal at festivals – but in the club environments I was used to playing in, that never happened back then,” says Bizzle.

“A lot of the club owners were like, woah, woah, woah, what’s going on here!”

The three-minute barrage of energy, which begins with Bizzle before the microphone is passed between 10 MCs, became so notorious that clubs across the country banned it.

Signs began to appear in the DJ booths, which read: “All Lethal B songs are prohibited in this venue (including instrumentals).”

In a sign of how repressed it was, it was never performed live with all the MCs together.

That’s about to change, two decades after the song’s release, as Bizzle and the whole crew are set to perform Pow! at the Roundhouse in London in December.

It’s a surreal turn for the rapper that would have been unimaginable back in 2004 when he created the track.

Pow! it was a song born out of frustration with the music industry.

Major labels haven’t invested in grime – despite hopes they would after Dizzee Rascal’s debut album Boy In Da Corner took off the previous year.

“Dizzee was having a blast – he won the Mercury (Music Award) and that gave us a bit of hope. It was like, ‘yeah, sign artists again,'” says Bizzle.

“Nothing happened. It was just Dizzee. The rest of us went back to pirate radio.”

But London’s pirate radio stations were where Pow! caused a frenzy even before it was released on iTunes.

And this is where Bizzle honed his skills, clashing with other MCs on the airwaves.

With Pow! he wanted to “create the vibe of pirate radio on a song”.

“When I was in the studio, it was just constant energy. Everybody’s spitting their bars, everybody’s going crazy. I was like, “I don’t think that’s ever happened on a song before.”

Bizzle started hunting down beats and putting in calls to his favorite underground MCs.

He eventually managed to gather 10 of them in a room to record the single, including D Double E, Flowdan and Jamakabi.

He played the beat he’d chosen – but most of them weren’t too enamored.

“I was like over the top, I’d be like ‘bro, wait until you hear this beat, it’s going to blow your mind.’

“I played the beat – no lie – 80% of the MCs were like ‘huh? What is this?'”

D Double E remembers not being blown away at first. “It wasn’t like it was rubbish… I remember not really feeling the atmosphere,” he tells the BBC.

After a rallying cry in the studio, which Bizzle likens to Sir Alex Ferguson at half-time of a Champions League final, the other MCs reluctantly agreed to record their lyrics. As they listened, their opinion began to change.

“When I heard the bar, I just knew I killed the beat,” D Double E says.

It didn’t take long for Pow! to take off on pirate radio and Channel U, which was dedicated to UK underground urban music. By December, it had entered the top 40 at number 11. The following year, it won the Mobo Award for Best Single.

Labels started calling and shows started getting booked.

What led to the song being banned from clubs is not entirely clear – but Bizzle believes a row broke out when Pow! it was played in one place, and word spread. It happened again, and again.

DJs started sending him photos of signs in their booths warning them not to play the song.

Then some of his shows even began to be pulled, including one in Leicester, after police warned the club could lose its live license if it was allowed to go ahead, Bizzle recalls.

“Then I was like this is actually really serious, it’s actually getting out of hand.”

At the time, clubs in London were required to fill out a form when hosting DJ and MC events. It included the question “is there a particular ethnic group participating?” – which was met with accusations of racism.

Police said it had reduced gun crime in 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 finally withdrawn.

Bizzle recalls how efforts to suppress his music began to falter after top music magazine NME compared Pow! to God Save the Queen by the Sex Pistols.

“Once in a generation comes a record that brings people to their feet, a rallying cry to the masses, a barometer of social discontent that turns venues into frenzied riots,” the review reads.

Festivals then started booking Bizzle and he played packed shows at Reading & Leeds.

Jay-Z hit over Pow! instrumental. There was even talk of the American superstar appearing on an official remix of the track.

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 once again taking the streets of London by storm.

Tens of thousands of students protested against the increase in tuition fees. On December 10, just a stone’s throw from Big Ben, a sound system was set up and protesters began playing Pow! The crowd went wild.

Bizzle says he was proud when he saw the footage.

“We had an understanding. I did Pow! because I was almost fighting against what was happening with the police and the industry trying to shut us down,” he says.

“It was a similar message with the students, I was glad to see it used the way we did. This was the perfect backing track for that moment.”

Bizzle says the inspiration behind December’s show, which will celebrate 20 years of Pow!, came from an unlikely source.

“It’s so random. Last year I was relaxing watching Netflix and saw the Robbie Williams documentary,” says Bizzle.

Inspired by Williams’ reunion with the other members of Take That, Bizzle thought it was time for him to do the same.

“I was sitting there thinking I miss the boys.”

Some of the Pow! The MCs have moved on from music, including Napper, who is a boxing promoter and manager Chris Eubank Jr, but everyone will be on stage on December 1 with special guests including Roll Deep.

“Everyone has gone on to other areas of life, but the main thing is that everyone is still alive and well,” says Bizzle.

“When the show happens, it’s going to be exciting, man, 20 years from now, and seeing how people respond to the song as it just came out today.

“We have to give people what they want and what they’ve been missing.”

Revealed: The True Story Behind Jay Z’s Guest Verse at Pow! by Lethal Bizzle

Over 45 minutes Lethal Bizzle and Radio 1’s Target discussed everything from 90s drum’n’bass, East London, More Fire Crew and meeting the rappers who inspired him.

He also revealed the real story behind Jay Z’s involvement in his iconic (and controversial) track, Pow! following a performance at the Royal Albert Hall.