The exhibit
Tuesday nights on Jermyn Street — the St James’s address where London’s hip hop crowd came to dress up. Nikki Beatnik ran the room with her best friend, and word travelled fast: no paid appearances, no free drinks, just the music and the door doing the work. That was enough.
By her own account in Flavour Magazine, the guest book read like a passing tour of the era — Madonna, Missy Elliott, Eminem, Kelis. Parties for Guru, Run DMC, Jam Master Jay. Leonardo DiCaprio dropping through. This was the room that made her the girl hip hop DJ in London.
Steve Sadler took the guest booth alongside — the same touring guest DJ signature that runs through every FunkyElite night. Together with Nikki and the resident rotation, Tuesdays at 57 became the mid-week address that the West End Friday-and-Saturday crowd cleared their diaries for.
"Everyone who was anyone in hip hop used to come… we never even gave away one free drink ever. People would just come because the music was good."