Hip Hop Hooray!

Oh snap! It was my first hip hop show EVER! I got out my old ADIDAS track jacket, some gold chains and chunky rings, so I felt like the 4th member of RunDMC, and rounded up my homies and I was ready to kick it.

Having never been to a hip hop show before, I was a little surprised that the doors weren’t until 10pm. I must be getting old, since I thought this was some sort of misprint on the tickets. Strange but true. Maestro did not even take the stage until 11:30, so I weasled my way up to the front of the stage so I could get a good view, especially since I only had on my Chuck T’s which meant I didn’t have the height of stiletto heels to my advantage.
Maestro opened up with “Drop the Needle” which got the crowd pumped, and just when you thought the song was over he laid down the “black tuxedo, black tuxedo, black, black, black tuxedo” and everyone lost their shit. He interacted with the crowd on many levels, giving handshakes, love and props to his fellow Canadians, and even holding out the mic so our friend got to sing along. The Maestro is 41 now, and I guess that little person inside me from twenty years ago was thinking he would come out with his crazy slanted Arsenio Hall hairdo and moustache, but times have changed and he was in a ball cap and white dress shirt, jumping around on stage with so much contagious energy. Maestro also dropped his biggest hit “Let Your Backbone Slide” which is the best selling Canadian hip hop single of all time, and “These Eyes” which is one of Alex’s favorites.

After a short intermission and a DJ scratch session, Naughty By Nature took the stage. Treach came out in a fur jacket and hoodie, looking like a mean mofo. I have to admit the white girl in me was a little scared, but as he proceeded with the show and joked around with the crowd; calling us “his family” I realized every little white girl needs a big black brother. I was still at the front of the stage stuck next to a wigger who was the longest, lankiest and the leanest white boy I have ever seen trying to dance to hip hop, he was waving his arms around like he was trying to land a plane, and I can’t believe I didn’t get elbowed. However, I was privy to wigger-boy shouting out lyrics in my face whenever he happened to turn my way like he was free-styling his own tracks, which was absolutely hysterical. NBN mixed up a bunch of what we called “white people’s favorite black songs” such as “California Love, Drop it Like its Hot”, and “Golddigger” and in between those scratched up remixes, they would perform their own tracks. The boys opened up with “O.P.P” which made everybody bounce, and gave us “Jamboree, Everything’s Gonna Be Alright” and ending with “Hop Hop Hooray” where they dragged a bunch of peeps on stage and they all danced.

I was hoping there would be some raw break-dance action happening, but the show was pretty dope as is. Treach and Vin Rock also did a shout out to 2Pac, and Treach actually poured some Hennessy on his tattooed arm which had a picture of 2Pac on it. There was so much love in the room last night and the boys kept yelling at us to all get home safe and not fight cuz we are all family, which is a pretty awesome statement for a hip-hop band to make since Vancouver has become Canada’s gang capital. In any case, if this is any indication of what hop hop shows are like, count me in for the next one!

When The Machines Pop And Lock

When Basement Jaxx copped the riff from a 1979 deep cut named "M.E." for their bouncier-than-a-SuperBall and just as irritating 2001 club-smash "Where's Your Head At?", mainstream clubgoers were exposed to a truism that electro nerds and hip hop heads had been meditating on for decades: Gary Numan delivers fat beats.

The Numan renaissance is a much discussed phenomenon that's been addressed from several angles: his return from critical and commercial exile, the use of his beats in records like "Where's Your Head At?" and Armand Van Helden's slightly less ubiquitous, but just as gratingly cloying "Koochy" in 2000, how he's borrowed motifs from the generation of artists who were inspired by his absolutely crucial first four albums in order to forge a set of modern and moody industrial rock outings.

But the impact Numan's had on hip hop has gone largely unmentioned, perhaps owing to the lack of crossover between hip hop and vintage synth-pop fans. But savvy hip hop producers have lent a keen ear to Numan's discography and have found a plethora of beats ripe for sampling. The spacey, often nervous ambiance that Numan's synths create are buffered around simple but often hypnotically compelling rhythm parts, making for head-nodding loops that can't help but draw the listener in. Here's a sampling of tracks from the past decade:

Underdog, "Films"
A 2-CD Numan tribute album, "Random", was peppered with all manner of Brit-pop stars and alt-rock also-rans (a second tribute, "Random 2", anticipated the success of "Koochy" and "Where's Your Head At?" by offering up house interpretations of Numan's work), and closed with a grimy and snarling Bristol-influenced take on "Films".

Afrika Bambaataa, "Metal"
Bambaataa's never made any secret of the influence of Kraftwerk on foundational hip-hop jams like "Planet Rock", so it was no surprise to see him turn to "Metal" on his 2004 release, "Dark Matter Moving at the Speed of Light".


GZA, "Life Is A Movie"
The RZA's selection of the beat from "Films" to finish off his cousin the GZA's excellent "Pro Tools" disc was one of the more pleasant surprises I got from this year's crop of records, although after RZA rehabilitated Zamfir by deftly dropping "The Lonely Shepherd" into "Kill Bill", I suppose I shouldn't have ever underestimated Bob Digi's crate-digging skills. The icy synth sheens are perfectly suited to the rain which is perpetually falling in the RZA and GZA's contemplative verses.


Esoteric, "General Zod"
Boston's Esoteric takes some time off of waging war in some of underground hip hop's most legendary battles to wax hella nerdy overtop of "We Have A Technical", one of a clutch of fantastic B-sides from Numan's "Replicas" album.