Note: I wrote this on Sunday, September 4, and submitted for possible publication. That didn't pan out, so I thought I'd put it up on the blog, but have had a busy week and am just getting to it now. Hope you enjoy!
Saturday, on a sun-scorched field on Governor’s Island in New York, thousands of hip-hop faithful turned out to witness the latest incarnation of Rock The Bells, a tour that in its eighth year has become the holy grail of hip-hop festivals. It has raised the stakes the past two years with one important change -- having the headlining artists perform their classic albums in their entirety.
“That’s like the second time we’ve done that song in 10 years.” Talib Kweli, after performing “Hater Players”
Bands performing albums in their entirety is certainly nothing new in the music world. Whether it be tribute performances, live shows at festivals such as South By Southwest, All Tomorrow’s Parties and the Pitchfork Music Festival, or even as a tool of self-promotion, performing whole albums serves as both a treat for devoted fans and a primer for uninitiated or casual ones. But it is not something that is common in hip-hop. The Genius/GZA has performed Liquid Swords live for years -- he even built a tour around it in 2008 -- and Public Enemy has performed It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back (and is also slated to perform Fear of A Black Planet) -- live, but neither has ever been accused of existing inside the mainstream mold of hip-hop.
Last year, the festival was headlined by hip-hop force Wu-Tang Clan, who performed their seminal work Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s first-born son, who goes by both “Boy Jones” and “Young Dirty Bastard,” and is the spitting image of his late father, performed his parts). Raekwon the Chef said it was the first time the group would perform the whole album live, while The GZA elaborated that the group would prepare for the show by actually rehearsing, something he claimed they had done only three times in their nearly 20 years as a collective. Also performing full albums were Rakim (Paid In Full), KRS-1 (Criminal Minded), Slick Rick (The Great Adventures of Slick Rick), Snoop Dogg (Doggystyle) and A Tribe Called Quest (Midnight Marauders). Lauryn Hill was rumored to be on the bill, but was instead a special guest, performing only selections of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill rather than the whole work in full. With such a tour de force lineup, and a demanding set of performances, the number of destinations was pared down noticeably, from 10-16 in previous years to just four. This year the destinations included Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Boston. Promoters Guerilla Union had a tall task in trying to top the bill from last year’s festival, but if they didn’t top it, they came damn close.
“This is the first time me and Nas gon’ do this shit on stage.” MC Serch, before joining Nas for Serch’s “Back To The Grill.”
In 2005, MTV named Paid In Full the greatest hip-hop album of all-time. Number two was Illmatic, the debut album from one Nasir Jones, better known to the masses as Nas. But while everyone in the late ‘80’s was no doubt influenced by Paid In Full, the number of MC’s who were influenced by Illmatic likely dwarf that. Nas is also more relevant these days than Rakim, as he is still pumping out hits, and this was to be the first time he performed the album live. Co-headlining with the Queensbridge legend was Ms. Hill, who the promoters locked down this year to perform Miseducation in its entirety. Also prominent on the bill were Cypress Hill (performing Black Sunday), Black Star (Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star), GZA (Liquid Swords), Mobb Deep (The Infamous), Raekwon and Ghostface Killah (Only Built 4 Cuban Linx) and Erykah Badu (Baduizm). Newbies Curren$y and Mac Miller got top billing on the west coast leg, and Common (Be) did every stop but New York.
Never mind the headliners, the prime cuts of that undercard are monster-sized. Anytime hardcore hip-hop heads can see GZA, Raekwon and Ghostface on the same day it’s a good day, to say nothing of Cypress Hill, Badu or Mos Def and Talib Kweli. But most of them tour constantly. The same cannot be said for Mobb Deep, who had not toured together in three years thanks to Prodigy’s incarceration. Even before that, their mostly underground status -- though legendary in the five boroughs -- generally precluded them from big shows like Rock The Bells, and as a result, many diehard fans had never seen them live. They did not disappoint. While they strayed from The Infamous at will and weren’t joined by collaborators like Raekwon, Nas, Ghostface or Lil' Kim (Big Noyd was there of course, rocking an updated version of the crew’s old “Hennessy” jerseys), but they kept their set at a fevered pitch, crushing some of the greatest hits in their catalog, concluding with what is probably the greatest underground hip-hop song of all-time, “Shook Ones, Part Two.” The crowd -- many of whom had been on their feet at that point for seven-plus hours -- left energized. They would need that energy as the festival drew to a close.
Despite speculation in the crowd, Hill did take the stage for her set, and though she seemed thoroughly annoyed with her mic at points, she turned the crowd out. After seemingly drawing her performance to a close with hit “Everything Is Everything,” Hill stunned the crowd. Last year, she brought out several hip-hop and R&B luminaries who were in attendance at the New York show, but none performed with her. This year, she brought back former band mate Pras Michel, with whom she had not been seen with in public since 2006. Together, they performed “Fu-Gee-La,” “Ready Or Not” and “Killing Me Softly,” during which Hill broke from character even further by bringing her children onto stage to share the moment with her. It was a moment that seemed like it would be hard to top. Nas, however, was up to the challenge.
Nas has anointed himself with several personas through the years, but when he started, he was Nasty Nas, and that fire was evident from the beginning. After album intro “Genesis” played, he launched into “New York State Of Mind.” The crowd hung on every word, and when Nas turned the mic to the crowd they bellowed the bars, none louder than the priceless quip “I never sleep, ‘cause sleep is the cousin of death.”
Like Black Star earlier in the day, Nas would burn through each track of the album in order, but unlike Black Star (who did add a couple of hits at the end of their set) Nas detoured from the album twice to pay his respects. The first time was following “The World Is Yours,” when peerless DJ’s Premier and Pete Rock engaged in a lengthy DJ battle. Then, following “Memory Lane,” Nas brought MC Serch to the stage. Nas credited Serch for giving him a shot when he was still young in the game with the song “Back To The Grill,” which they performed to monster effect. Joe Fatal, Large Professor and Akinyele then jumped on stage to perform the song that Nas first appeared on, “Live At The BBQ,” from Main Source’s Breaking Atoms, with the Aktapuss sticking around to thrill the crowd with his cult fave “Put It In Your Mouth.”
The posse cuts seemed to give Nas new life, as he sped through the last few cuts off Illmatic before delighting the crowd with several of his singles, including his new joint “Nasty,” “Hate Me Now,” and “Nas Is Like,” before capping the festivities sooner than he would have liked with the banger “Made You Look” (to his credit, he kept claiming he didn’t want to stop, and looked ready to perform far deeper into the night. This may have been the fault of the crew who set up the stage for him, as they seemingly took forever to set up the most basic props and thus pushed the beginning of Nas’ set closer to the show’s end time.). The crowd was treated by the presence of Steve Nash, who was brought on stage, and giddily danced with the rest of Nas’ crew. He even brought Hill back out for “If I Ruled The World (Imagine That),” though Hill’s mic was once again not working properly.
As will always be the case with a show of this magnitude, mic problems were the bugaboo of the day, as Hill wasn’t alone in that respect. It was one of a few issues that cropped up, though the most notable issue was that with three main stages, fans had some very hard decisions to make -- in particular having to choose between Nas and Raekwon and Ghostface for the final act (My cohorts and I picked the following schedule -- Random Axe, Black Star, GZA, Mobb Deep, Lauryn Hill and Nas, breaking for dinner between GZA and Mobb Deep. This meant missing several acts -- more than a full day’s worth -- that we would have liked to have seen, such as Donald Glover/Childish Gambino, Masta Killa, Slaughterhouse, Evidence and of course, Raekwon and Ghostface.). But just as there were unexpected potholes, the unexpected performances from The RZA, Serch, Akinyele, as well as the DJ battle between Premo and The Chocolate Boy Wonder more than balanced the scales.
Recently, Watch The Throne and Tha Carter IV set records for album downloads, but far too frequently these days, we consume music song by song rather album by album. With the cost of music so low, fans are increasingly hesitant to pay to see even the best artists live. By applying the whole album formula for its largest acts, Rock The Bells has hit the sweet spot of giving fans a unique experience that is also well worth the money, and it has brought out the best of its performers. As an added bonus, they have rekindled the love for the long player, something that in today’s 140 characters or less world is a welcome respite. Stuck off the realness, indeed.