Posts Tagged ‘Hip Hop’

Kool Herc – 11.12.09

Sunday, November 15th, 2009

Kool Herc
U-31
San Diego
11.12.09

The DJ known as Artistic is putting in the work. We should all be enjoying his labors. Dude already brought out Cappadonna and Abstract Rude this year. This time, Art took it to the stratosphere by bringing in the inventor of Hip Hop, Kool Herc!

Kool came on just after midnight to rock an all vinyl set. His ‘Tools’ he called them. “No monitor”, He instructed. “It gives me a false impression of whats going on on the dancefloor.” Though, the guy wasn’t mixing records per se what else can you say? This guy fucking invented Hip Hop.

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Cappadonna – 06.03.09

Thursday, June 4th, 2009

Cappadonna
Bar Pink
06.03.09

“This is the randomist shit ever” were the words spoken by the illustrious Mr. Riddles. “For all the non-Believers”, declared DJ Artistic. “We got the Wu shirts and the new Cappadonna CD’s right here”, assured The ‘donna.

The year is 2009. Web 2.0 is in full effect. Do not sleep. You may miss the Wu. Er, you may miss “the honorary tenth member of the Wu”. Cappadonna was billed. He did show up. He did rock a 15 minute freestyle sesh, completely solo if not completely sober, for about 25 of us. Just waltzed in like..Wha!? My phone camera did not work and I did miss capturing what could have been some exclusive, footage-of-the-year type shit. I did manage to scoop up a tshirt though. (Big up to the homie Marlon from Urban Solace for lacing me with the cappadonna t-shirt.)

I found out about this show roughly 3 hours before it went down. Not completely convinced I took a drive by about 9:45. Not much going on, I headed to Toronado. St Bernardus Wit. (The review of their lamb sliders is pending!!). I made it in. SD hero, Cutfather, was warming it up nice. Then this fool shows up rocks his little freestyle sound-check and has us wait like 2 hours. Finally he rocks what ended up being 3 verses. Total. Upon conferring with the resident subject matter experts they included; one from Wu-Tang forever, an ODB verse (WTF?), and the C.R.E.A.M. verse. Definitely worth the price of admission which was zero.

This was some all-the-way real hip hop going down, friends. Sorry you didn’t make it. The all SD semi-freestyle debriefing was real fresh. The usual suspects; Johaz, Asia, Orko, et al. Big up to Artistic and all SD hip hop that came out.
Wu

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Mike, Aaron & Eddie (Project Blowed) – 05.21.09

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

Mike, Aaron & Eddie (Project Blowed)
Canes
05.21.09

Seeing that Project Blowed was in town sent a nostalgic tingle down my memory lane. I used to catch these cats often when I lived in LA. Since my live hip hop options are slim to none around this fucking place
I knew I was not missing this one. The Project is going on its 15th year of existence. At the show it became known to me that Acey and Myka have known each other since 6th grade. They are all in their 40s. They know how to do hip hop really well.

I arrived about 15 mins before they went on. DJ Drez came out first to nice it up. Enter Nocando to host and introduce Aceyalone. Mr.alone can rhyme really fast. and you can understand him. They must have did a real sound check too; I could hear the vocals and the music. [Big up to the Canes sound crew; you finally dialed one in.] Next up Abstract Rude set it off with selections from his new album on Rhymesayers, Rejuvenation. He sprinkled in some tunes from various other solo albums as well. Acey made a return appearance to go through some A-Team joints with Ab. Myka joined in for some Haiku D’tat routines. A few classic Freestyle Fellowship verses closed it out for me. Ace and Myka even did an old Junior High routine! That was a nice treat. The crowd was small but solid and energetic. Still, this Blowed Project gets a solid A.

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Egyptian Lover – 04.11.09

Monday, April 13th, 2009

Egyptian Lover
Arabian Prince
Kava Lounge
04.11.09

Egypt. Egypt.
If you don’t know who Egyptian Lover is, do not talk to me about hip hop until you do. Arabian Prince did not show. Double booked. Fuck it. That would have been way too much too handle anyway.

Though not often enough, every now and then I go see a show and find myself awestruck. And i’m not easily awestruck. This was The Shit!! Totally old school, kinda nasty, and super bangin’. My birthday was cool but i didn’t get to see The Pharaoh of Electro on my b-day the way Gospel1 did. Old friend, Arturo and his crew were in effect as well. Good show.

He dropped Kraftwork (Tour de France, I believe) in between beat juggles of Electric Kingdom and some other shit i hadn’t never heard before. Of particular note was the solo 808 version of I need a freak. Say word.
EgyptianLover Photo:Arturo Chavez
Photo: Arturo Chavez

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