Written by Noah Goodbaum | Photography by Philip Litevsky

When Below The Heavens saw release late last year, it caused a storm. Tastemakers fell all over themselves to rep for a theretofore unknown talent out of L.A.– a fella named Blu who combined sterling party-rocking bravado with some of the most thoughtful and introspective ruminations we’ve heard on a rap record since Resurrection.

And as it turned out, the songs translate live really well, with Blu’s everyday-man reflections not losing a bit of their potency when he’s spitting them onstage or turning them over to rabid fans to recite from memory to an awestruck crowd.

Blu spares no effort to delve into complex emotions, but he always talks about ‘em in a way any of us could relate to, without sacrificing the fire that makes him one of the hungriest new jacks on the mic in a minute. Producer Exile couldn’t make it out, but the latest true-school golden boy didn’t disappoint– “No Greater Love”, “Soul Amazin’”, and “My World Is…” were some of the highlights, but the whole show was rock-solid. Don’t be surprised if this cat’s fanbase increases on the daily– he’s got a lot of the stuff a rapper needs to be great already, and it was on display that night.

Written by Sean Ward | Photography by Philip Litevsky

After getting home from REMG’s presentation of Nas at the Kool Haus in Toronto, I got to wondering what it is that sets him so far apart from the competition.  Other acts with a catalogue stretching as far back as his are often working within their niche, catering to a stable fanbase but mostly running off of the fumes of past glories.  But going to see Nas, even fifteen years into his performing career, does not feel like going to see a nostalgia act.  And it’s not just that Nas is one of a small handful of hip hop artists who are able to stay relevant over a long career.  There’s something else going on, something very special that makes Nas one of the most important and vital presences in the world of hip hop.  And this magical factor was on full display for this performance.

I invite the haters to present their case that Nas hasn’t done anything worthwhile since Illmatic.  And then with glee and enthusiasm I will ask them how, if that’s the case, Nas is able to rock a crowd as hard, as steadily, and as long as he did at the Kool Haus considering that almost the entirety of Illmatic was presented near the top of the night in a 20-minute medley.  It took not even a bar from each of those songs to set the whole crowd into a frenzy (anyone who accuses Toronto of being an apathetic audience, I wish you would have been at the Kool Haus to see this crowd).  You could literally feel the elation sweep the room when It Ain’t Hard To Tell piped in.

But like I said before, this show wasn’t about parading out the hits.  In fact, I caught myself thinking a couple of times that Nas must be nearly out of gas with so many of his signature tracks unleashed on the early side of the night.  But Nas has so god damn many classics, from mainstream hits to street anthems, that he is in a perfect situation: he can go off on an inaccessible tangent for a song or two to showcase to the heads how technically brilliant he is and just when it seems like the cats in the back are starting to daydream about their next beer, out comes another monster track that that reels ‘em right back in.

Jay-Z (and this is coming from a huge Jay-Z fan) is like The Rolling Stones: he packs ‘em in and yeah he’s still putting out records, but the fans want to hear him perform the classics.  Nas is more like David Bowie, switching up the style so fast and so often that you can barely keep up.  And when you thought he fell off, you quickly realize that he was actually creating the next trend all along.  With so many different styles and so many different personas over the course of his career, Nas has been so many things for so many people that the Nas that each person came to see was slightly different from the last.  And while everyone can agree to go bananas over The World is Yours or New York State of Mind (altered to T-Dot State of Mind for this performance), different groups of people had entirely different collections of songs to hold dear and get excited for. Toronto is usually a place for hip hop to show off the width and breadth of its influence.  This concert beautifully presented its depth with at least three generations of the hip hop audience representing, with the evening’s star attraction meaning something different to each of them.

Even hip hop fans disagree with me when I express my view that hip hop has barely tapped its potential.  Hip hop isn’t just a genre of music, it’s a whole artform unto itself.  Some people get cynical when they look at the current crop of flavors-of-the-month, seeing that as representative of what hip hop is.  But that stuff is disposable.  There’s nothing to feel but hope when you see someone like Nas demonstrating that the good stuff will prove itself timeless.

Written by Cristina Allen | Photography by Philip Litevsky

The Roots have had the reputation of being one of the best live bands and on March 30th at the Kool Haus, they lived up to their standing. As one of the few hip-hop acts that use live instruments in recording and concert, a factor that has had a substantial influence in their distinction. Their last show in Toronto at the Rogers Picnic in the absence of ?uestlove was somewhat disappointing, though redeemed with guest appearances from members of De La Soul and Lupe Fiasco. The show was nevertheless entertaining but their recent concert was a cut above.

As a band, their performance was fluid unlike most other hip-hop shows that can seem disjointed and scattered. Even between songs, from older tracks like You Got Me off of Things Fall Apart, to new songs from their just released album Rising Down, and covers of A Tribe Called Quest, Mims, and Biz Markie in between, the transitions were immaculate.

Another cover that was performed on request by ?uestlove, Capt. Kirk, and Tuba Gooding Jr., albeit not for the first time but stuck with the crowd for the rest of the night nonetheless, was Masters of War by Bob Dylan – a very political message about the on going mess in Iraq. With the performance of this song, the Roots reminded the crowd of their integrity, adding depth to the show and reflecting their new album.

The sound, despite some technical difficulties throughout the night, was well orchestrated and with the addition of Tuba Gooding Jr. playing the sousaphone, was full and rich. There were technical and extended jazz/funk solos on guitar, bass, and drums that built intensity between songs.

?uestlove live, was beyond anything imaginable, with his heavily jazz-influenced drumming that was only amplified by his obviously sincere dedication and passion to the music. In fact, that energy extended throughout the entire band and watching them perform with smiles and gracious interactions between band members made the show all the more brilliant. Their good vibes were contagious and resonated through to the diverse crowd; and Black Thought fed into this with his dynamic disposition keeping the energy high throughout the show.

All in all, the show established that the Roots not only redefined hip-hop from the time they came out of Philly, but are still redefining music.

The Academy debuts a new, semi-regular concert series entitled Hometown Heroes this Friday, May 2nd at the El Mocambo in Toronto. This series is all about showcasing Toronto’s finest, and the lineup looks positively Heroic.

“The performers for the first concert are HERO (official Toronto launch performance for their debut album), Masia One (fresh of an Asia tour), Marvel, Anonymous Twist, and Focus. The deejays will be DJ Mensa and Rod Skimmins and the host for the evening will be Wan Luv.”

I strongly encourage everyone to come and show some love to our homegrown talent. We’ve covered Hero recently on Dope-A-Lot when they opened for Zaki Ibrahim and this NYC / Toronto duo are about to blow up!

The Academy has been kind enough to extend two complimentary tickets to Dope-A-Lot readers, so send a quick note to contest@dopealot.com with your name and e-mail address. We will pick a random winner and notify them at 12:00pm on Thursday. Click here to check out Cyberkrib United’s blog entry on the concert including tracks you can download to get a taste of what to expect.

See you Friday!

Written by Noah Goodbaum | Photography by Philip Litevsky

I wasn’t really looking forward to The RZA’s show at the Phoenix last night. It was gonna be freezing cold out there and I didn’t want to have to traipse all the way down to the Phoenix Concert Theatre and deal with its martinet security guards and its wack-ass sound system if my only reward was gonna be the Wu-Tang mastermind dicking around. Not to suggest that I don’t love and venerate The RZA; he’s crafted some of the most delicate and artful beats in hip-hop. But his emceeing style is bizarre — he’s 100% gung-ho about being completely demented, taking the themes that Wu-Tang’s hyper-esoteric rap style introduced and mixing them all in a blender that whirs at 100 mph.

Recently I’ve come to dearly, dearly love his steez, partly because practically no one else would have the courage to be so unselfconsciously wacko. Even when his experiments don’t work, he puts his heart and soul into all of ‘em. But traditionally they hasn’t resulted in a great number of especially good solo songs, and I knew next to nothing about the Bobby Digital persona he was gonna be trotting out. So my expectations were low.

Oh man, was I ever off the mark. The show knocked me flat– I barely knew any of the songs he performed, but he was dynamite on stage, drunk as fuck, blitzed out of his mind and absolutely electrifying. I had always pictured RZA as amiable and intelligent, but I never figured he could be this much of a showman. But he had us eating out of his hands– hundreds of us throwing our Ws up, hands crisscrossed in the air, shrieking with delight, as he leaped around the stage like a jackrabbit, sloshing the front row with champagne, getting a capella chants going with choruses for “Clan In Da Front” and “M.E.T.H.O.D. Man”, and howling through an impromptu mass sing-along to one of my favourite songs of his, the child-poverty story “Grits” from Birth of A Prince.

We got “Bring Da Ruckus”, we got “Wu Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthin’ Ta Fuck Wit’”. The “Reunited” beat came on, and he blacked out; the “South Bronx” beat came on, and he paid moving tribute to KRS-ONE, away rocking another crowd in Montréal; the “1-800-Suicide” beat came on, and we all roared with joyous surprise and burst into macabre lyrics about he took an axe to his head and he chopped it. It was incredible.

And we got off-the-cuff statesmanship too: “I know ain’t too many of your Canadian artists make it big yet, but just keep supportin’ ‘em! Y’all been down with hip-hop from way back! Soon you’ll show the world that Canada don’t fuck around!” Then, “The Black, the brown, the red, the yellow, the white. Five fingers make one fist. Five races make one family.” And, of course, the obligatory but always hearfelt phat phat shoutout to world peace.

It was a genuinely captivating experience; the hour or so felt like ten minutes, and every moment seemed to yield something new and awesome to go insane about. He turned dapper into low-down-dirty and back again, at once impeccably unruffled and freakishly unhinged. He mixed the consummate panache of a born entertainer with the loony-bin craziness that makes him such a treasure to our culture, and it was really something to behold.Peep all the shots

here.

Written by Noah Goodbaum | Photography by Philip Litevsky

With this review, I wish to make it known that I am no mere mortal human being. Still less am I a fat white slob . No, for verily I am an initiate of that most fearsome of orders: the Army of the Mash Out Posse.Our leaders: the esteemed generals Sir William Danzini and Sir Fizzleberry of Womack. Our mission: To make any and all jive turkeys kneel. DO YOU HEAR ME?! I’M SORRY, I DON’T THINK YOU CAN HEAR ME, MOTHERFUCKER! BUKKA BUKKA BUKKA BUKKA BUKKA! BLAOW BLAOW GET THE FUCK DOWN!

Yesterday’s math: PANDEMONIUM. Absolute anarchy, totally joyous on every level. Brownsville’s finest, M.O.P., are the authors of a crazed alchemy that, for my money, is pretty much unique in hip-hop, even in popular music; there’s virtually no band anywhere that so completely epitomizes raw primal aggression, and even though there’s a whole wing of hip-hop completely devoted to break-your-face fight music, no one does it with the sheer whirlwind ferocity, the red-blooded conviction, of M.O.P.

And they put on a fucking amazing show last night. Both of them are actually squat, stocky guys, a lot less imposing and threatening than you’d imagine they’d be; they’re actually kinda friendly-looking, which is kinda the antithesis of what you’d expect, considering their lyrical devotion to fucking you up and sticking you for your riches. Lil’ Fame’s got an enormous gold grill stuck on a grin a mile wide; he looks like a gangstafied version of Cee-Lo. Billy Danze looks like one of the bal hedz from Onyx, with squinty eyes and a voice like crushed gravel. Their catalogue is thick with monster bangers, ominous beats alternating with amped-up horn-blast insanity, and even though we never got to hear some of their greatest smash-thwack ruffneck shit (they didn’t do “Rugged Neva Smoove”, nor “Breaking The Rules”, nor “Handle Ur Bizness”), the First Family capos and their talented henchman Sticky were firing on all cylinders, delighted and exultant as they knocked out “Ghetto Warfare” and “Cold As Ice” and “Downtown Swinga” and “How About Some Hardcore”, in response to which I say: YEAH WE LIKE IT RAW! Because we do. And they was raw.

Most meaningful for me, I think, was getting a short sharp burst of “Follow Instructions”, whose beat is completely fucking bonkers (what up Primo!) and whose massive booming anthemic chorus stands tall even in the catalogue of this group so peerlessly adept at massive booming anthemic choruses. But in the final analysis, they could have sat in rocking chairs playing the glockenspiel for 45 minutes if they’d seen fit, and as long as one moment was still coming, no one would really much mind, I don’t think. ‘Cause if you’re at an M.O.P. show, as every hardy cat and dame who knew the time and rightfully braved the cold to troop out to this particularly slammin’ M.O.P. show is aware, everything is just a drawn-out prelude to the moment when that destructive monstrous Sam & Dave sample kicks in and the crazed hysteric madness kicks in and suddenly you’re lost in a maelstrom where every single solitary soul is losing their mind like the world is about to end and all that’s left to do is party. That is to say: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANTEUP!!!!!!!!!!!

WHAT THE SHIT. Unforgettable greatness. Transcendent wonderment on every concievable level. Forget that it was freezing outside. Forget that the crowd was mostly disenchanted and lackluster throughout the performances by the opening acts, which included the very dope Mayhem Morearty as well as some people called the Fuckin’ Badass Indians, from some place called K-Town (as they incessantly told us), whose members include a Mohawk with a Mohawk (!) and who have all the stage presence of certified public accountants. And who will not be challenging The Goats’ exalted status as the supreme great Aboriginal rap group anytime soon, but they would like us to know that they are from K-Town, and they are Rez’d Out, very Rez’d Out indeed. But no. Forget K-Town. Forget Old Man Winter. Forget whatever wackness and drudgery might have accumulated for those battle-scarred concertgoers all through the week. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANTEUP!!!!!!!!!!! That’s what it is. Simple, joyous, visionary, revolutionary. Awesome. AWESOME.

Peep all the shots here.

What can one really say about HHK that hasn’t already been said here on Dope-A-Lot? Well, for one thing, how about motha-effin Saukrates showing up and busting a few? Or how about Korry Deez from IRS? Yeah, that’s right. One hell of a dope night, topped off by my main girls at MASTEES dropping a crazy new shirt! Peep all the madness here.

Zaki, Zaki, Zaki. That’s all Toronto has been hearing lately. From the recent cover story in NOW magazine, to her packed performance at the Mod Club theatre which Dope-A-Lot happily covered. She has a timeless voice and energy and we all really hope Zaki Ibrahim gets the world-wide recognition and success she deserves. Opening for her were Toronto / NYC based Hero which The Cyberkrib recently introduced me to and they were dope as hell as well. Peep the rest of the shoot here.

The Academy busts out one of the biggest hip hop DJ lineups to ever grace the dance floors of Toronto. EPMD’s DJ Scratch and Da Beatminerz (Evil Dee and Mr. Walt) rocked the Revival bar to a packed house of heads. Unfortunately, it was on the same night as De La Soul, so I was only able to catch the last, and (cue hater comments) arguably the best in the form of DJ Scratch. Sporting a Superman T, Scratch proceeded to manipulate the decks in a manner only fit for a true master. Peep the pics here.

The Genius came through the former Docks nightclub, newly rechristened as the Polson Pier for one of their Sound Academy nights, courtesy of REMG. GZA was doing the Liquid Swords tour which basically involves him performing the entire album from start to finish and the hundreds of Wu fans in the club ate it up like a PB&J sandwich.
As soon as the infamous “When the MC’s came…” verse hit the speakers, the crowd went bananas and it was hard not to notice how much longevity the Wu brand has maintained. Dope show, start to cover of his late cousin ODB’s Shimmy Shimmy Ya finish.