For its 30th edition, Southbank Centre’s Meltdown Festival handed the reins to Little Simz, not just one of British music’s sharpest voices, but a listener deeply attuned to the multiplicity of sound. Over eleven days, she reimagined the festival as a living, breathing portrait of her creative world: a space where Yoruba-rooted soul met met contemporary classical composition, grime flowed over orchestral arrangements, spoken word cut through stripped-back folk, and West African guitar rhythms trade phrases with sparse, loop-driven minimalist piano.

Meltdown has always reflected its curators, from David Bowie’s avant-pop orbit to Grace Jones’s performance-art spectacular. Little Simz’s edition took this further, embracing a truly borderless Afro-diasporic spirit. Her festival connected Lagos, Toronto, New Orleans, Kingston, Accra, and South London into one vibrant soundscape. Artists arrived as storytellers, cultural torchbearers, and scene-shapers.

Across it all, Southbank Centre became a shape-shifter, transforming night by night into a jazz club, a church, a rave, a front-room gathering. It was not a linear narrative or a neat cross-section of scenes. It was something more fluid and necessary: a shared space for sound, memory and invention, curated by an artist listening with both ears open to the world.

That transformation was in full effect from the very first night, on 12 June, when Mike Skinner brought The Streets to Royal Festival Hall and turned it into something as equal parts pub-floor buzz, an opera house gravitas, and a chaos engine combined. The Birmingham MC wasted no time. “Turn the Page” hit and he was already in the crowd, shaking hands and shouting, “Save your claps, I want a standing ovation!” His band pivoted on a dime between 2-step, dub and indie-rap ballads, while Skinner delivered with trademark deadpan clarity.

The set was deliberately chaotic: he scolded late arrivals, rewired the energy every five minutes and, at one point, asked the crowd to stay seated, not for his sake, but out of respect for those behind them. “Dry Your Eyes” briefly stilled the room; “Fit But You Know It” detonated it again. A final double of “Take Me As I Am” and “Blinded by the Lights” tipped the crowd into full-body catharsis. By the end, it was no longer a concert; it was communal theatre, proof that Skinner still knows exactly how to break the fourth wall and take total command of the space. – READ THE FULL EVENT REVIEW HERE

Two evenings later, on 14 June in Queen Elizabeth Hall, Sasha Keable reshaped the atmosphere once more. Backed by her ten-voice Flames Collective choir, she opened with the unreleased “Feel Something”, letting stacked harmonies swell around her velvet alto. “Why” and “Hold Up” followed, built on slow-burn grooves that invited the seated crowd to rise, sway and eventually sing back entire refrains. Keable balanced vulnerability with control, folding classic-soul cadences into jazz-inflected chords, and by the closer “Careless Over You” the hall felt more like a late-night jam session than a formal recital. It was a reminder that intimacy, when handled honestly, can fill a room just as completely as volume.

On the same night, a few metres away on the main stage of Royal Festival Hall, Tiwa Savage took the hall with a four-piece band and two backing singers, stripping away studio polish and leaning into emotional precision. “Ma Lo” landed with an easy sway, “Celia’s Song” touched gospel cadences and she finished with a piano-led reading of “Somebody’s Son”. Spectacle gave way to substance: tone, timing and the quiet authority of a singer who trusts her material.

By 16 June, BADBADNOTGOOD pulled the venue in yet another direction, folding modal jazz, live-loop psychedelia and hip-hop phrasing into a single, free-form arc. Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” set a tense, charged tone before the band cut sharply into “Eyes On Me,” shifting into swung rhythms and dark Rhodes. The sound was textured and fluid, moving from psych-heavy funk through modal jazz explorations. They closed with a slow, luminous take on Roy Ayers’ “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” that melted into a new piece. No encore, no fanfare: just a room quietly transformed. – READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE

Three nights later, on 19 June, saxophonist and composer Nubya Garcia took over Queen Elizabeth Hall for a set shaped around her latest album Odyssey. Backed by Lyle Barton on keys, Max Luthert on bass and Sam Jones on drums, she moved between the dub-soaked haze of “Dawn”, the uptempo pulse of “Solstice” and the crisp swing of “Clarity”. Her playing was measured and commanding, every phrase landing with intention. The set closed with a meditative take on “Triumphance”, its mantra-like vocals drifting through the hall, turning the concert into something closer to a communal rite.

Then came 21 June, and Jon Batiste. Illuminated by a single spotlight, New Orleans musical royalty sits at the piano on the Royal Festival Hall stage. For one night only, this is his living room. “It’s just a piano, a microphone, and us,” he says, after opening his Meltdown show with a haunting and elegiac rendition of his American Symphony.

Batiste begins by stating the musical theme straight, before adding polyrhythms, cascading pentatonic runs and West African 6/8 time, expanding the form and demonstrating the possibilities of these 88 keys — which, lest we forget, are also a percussion instrument.

“You can take a melody home with you, you know,” Batiste offers, as we hum the refrain from his lullaby-like “Butterfly”. He closes by inviting his nephew up on stage to play bass, concluding a show as joyful, generous and rare as the maestro himself. – READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE

Little Simz returned on 22 June to close the festival she had shaped, backed by Chineke! Orchestra for sweeping re-workings of material from Sometimes I Might Be Introvert and NO THANK YOU. “Introvert” opened out into widescreen colour, “I Love You, I Hate You” revealed its raw emotional architecture, and guest turns from Obongjayar and Wretch 32 threaded fresh textures into the score. Finale became opening: an act of openness, collaboration and continual reinvention.

It brought the festival’s core into focus: a practice of deep listening, creative exchange and intentional curation. Over eleven days, Meltdown not only  reflected Little Simz’s influences, it outlined her approach – expansive, connected and driven by purpose.