Not only were three of hip-hop's earliest foundation layers gonna be in my town, but they were performing for free, in a park, early in the evening, in fairly close proximity to my (and basically everyones since its center city) crib. MAN I WAS EXCITED FOR THIS SHIT.
Hip-hop purists can say what they want about Sugar Hill Gang, they were still the first group most people outside of New York ever heard repping this form of music called hip-hop. Everyone knows Dougie Fresh is one of the foremost masters of the art and well, Kool Herc is daddy, straight up. So I called the number on the website advertising this debacle in advance and was told via voice mail that preshow activities would happen between 6 and 8 p.m., with Sugar Hill, Herc and Dougie hitting the stage at 8:15. What a fuckin' joke.
The pre-show actually started at 8 p.m. and consisted of a bunch of young people lip synching to mid-90's hip hop classics. I saw a dude doing his best Chubb Rock imitation to "Just the Two of Us." A girl lip synched to Mary J. Blige's "Real Love," and so on. Luckily each of these folks had some radical background dancers, or I and DJ Eva would have shot ourselves right in front of everyone.
See the young folks sort of talent show was cool, I'm all for young folks having a positive, good time, but that shit was all supposed to have been done before 8 p.m.
Here's a shot of the crowd:
DJ Eva got bored real quick witht he lip synchers, but liked the dancers.
Anyway, we sat there till practically 10 p.m. and watched young folks come up and do their thing, like 50 of them, I didn't know the mid-90's produced that many hits and I am surprised no one did "Bitch Betta Have My Money," or "Booty Up." I mean they did "G Thang" and a few other clean version gangsta classics. Dude who did Ice Cube's "Good Day" actually rapped it. "Nasty Bitch" woulda cleared the place out. "Funky Piano" would have had me trippin'!
AND the police AND ARMY STYLE SECURITY IN FATIGUES AND BERETS I AM SERIOUS roped off the walkway between the amphitheater seats and the hill for no reason. Why couldn't we walk through there??? Come on man. This shit was just silly.
Anyway I'm just salty cuz I never been to concerts in any other genre that have been as faulty as so many rap concerts I have attempted to attend. How many times are we good citizens supposed to attempt to attend rap concerts that just don't happen? Reports from the front line say that Dougie DID come out at 11:15 and did one full song and 4 verses, he was on stage like 10 minutes folks. Great for all the people under 10 years old and their parents who had be be in bed. Half of the crowd of like say, 4,000 people, were very young kids.
Yeah it was free but come on now. These people wasted our time and energy. I wanted to see Kool Herc and pay my respects. They gave us a live version of Star Search. Come on y'all, get it together. The Miller Outdoor Theater ballet shows don't come with no lip synchers. Why should the rap shows. Shit. Sad.
Anyway, to cheer myself up I looked at these pictures of DJ Eva doing what she does when I am not looking. Hope they cheer you up too. Today is probably the last day that DJ Eva will be baby sisterless. Elena Bella coming soon.
Enjoy. I'll update after Elena gets here. PEACE to Dave Stelfox. He brought me grime and good vibes.
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