Live Hip Hop: Yay or Nay??

jaymack

im watching TI on the VMA's and im thinking how pointlless and annoying it is to watch a rapper and his countless cronies shouting over a prerecorded track.besides seeing an emcee backed by a live band, or getting to see a legend in their prime, is live hiphop ever good????

Grope

it can be cool. with a good dj or an mc that does freestyles. or at least entertains the crowd. i think it's cool when the DJ DJs before the show. Playing good music. Mixing, scratching a bit. And i like it when hip hop bands use remixes or perform a lot of unreleased tracks.

noz

getting to see a legend in their prime

TI is a legend in his prime.

gambit

The only successful live rap acts that I've seen are the ones that can add something to their music that is already recorded. I also tend to enjoy performances from dope acts that I've never heard their music before, but usually after I buy their CD I don't want to see them anymore.
Hip-hop has a handicap in that most cats just rap from pre-recorded beats that don't change. Then another one is that every rapper's ego is the size of Mongolia and they believe they are so live that there is no need to add some "oomph" to their songs for their live show.

I treat rock bands the same that just play the songs they've recorded on CD, but don't accent them in any way to give you a reason to need to see it in person. Then again, watching a cat lose his marbles banging the skins is far more interesting then watching a rapper lip-synch.

"Hip-hop" acts with dope live shows:
Jurassic 5 (these cats put on a full-on performance - only dudes whose CD I will find stale after two listens, but still want to see them play.)
The Roots (of course)
Spank Rock
KRS
Black Eyed Peas (pre-Fergie; I have no idea what their show is like now)

piedpiper

Most of the live Hip-Hop I??ve seen was average or crap. Among the most annoying things are bad microphones, crappy sound at all (voices are usually distorted and too loud) and all the "hey ho" - call and response stuff, which often makes about two thirds of the concert.

However, I don??t like Cypress Hill records very much, but they have to be mentioned as great live performers. Ugly Duckling and Saul Williams are high quality live acts as well.

theory9

Atmosphere was pretty damn good when he came through here...

JATX

I saw Rakim in Austin @ Emo's on Friday. Great show IMO. When he was about to come on "Holy are You" starts playing and "there is no God but you" starts looping then he proceeds to rhyme over the break of the song. I loved it. Rass Kass was aight. He only did about three verses from "Soul on Ice" rmx which really dissapointed me.

Mjukis

To me it depends on the venue. Seeing a rapper far away on a huge stage with thousands of people rarely does anything for me, compared to a small place where there's a more intimate feel. Then again, I feel this way about concerts in general, not just rap shows. In Europe in general and Sweden in particular, you're not really blessed with too many big names doing shows. I thought Snoop put on a pretty good show, he had an (however corny) intro movie, interludes, and performed all his hits. But my favourite rap shows have been the small cramped affairs with underground artists (no backpack).

PSellers

I've never really seen a good live hip hop show. I agree its just usually the shitty sound that puts me way off, nothing is eq'd. If someone can't be bothered to set up their equipment properly I can't be bothered to listen. So many artists have no stage presence and you have the annoying hype man shouting all the time. The act you want to see doesn't come on till 3am and you have seen 3 of the shittest warm up acts sometimes even more before hand. Raekwon and the GZA are ok live mainly because they have the classics but still pretty usual fair. The only thing I ever really really was this group called "Son Of Sam" that I saw at a KRS-One show and they basically played hip hop songs on their instruments and the DJ would cut in the vocals to the particular hip hop song. Their DJ was good and did an amazing beat juggle of Amerie "One Thing" so I enjoyed that.

Tabasko

mostly nay, but sometimes yay!

In Amsterdam there's always an extra chance that a show will become a Nay.. I've seen a lot of acts give really really lousy shows cause they were to stoned on Amsterdam weed..

magnetic

Nay.

33thirdcom

the Roots are good live, though now they are more interesting to watch as a tightknit band than necessarily what they play... Good show though, especially for people who never saw them back in their prime.

Big Daddy Kane is always "dope". I have seen him a number of times and he always entertains.

KRS-ONE always puts on a really great performance, never seen him NOT tear the house down.

Dead Prez put on a crazy show here in LA as did opener Ras Kass. part of it might have been the crowd energy but overall it was a great show.

Bootcamp came through about a month ago and put on a really really dope show. Had the crowd completely into it.

Most of the more radio friendly acts I have seen though have been sorely dissapointing. (Rick Ross, T.I., Chamillionare). They were overall just boring.

Rakim will be here this weekend... I am looking forward to seeing this.

gloom

hip hop is dead, nas said so

roisto

Saw Edan a few weeks ago in Helsinki. One of the best hiphop shows I've ever witnessed. Saw Kanye in June, he gave a decent performance, but nothing special (except the fact that he had his DJ play a A-Ha track and Kanye announced that it's one of his all-time favorite songs).

SexyBNyce

Saw Edan a few weeks ago in Helsinki. One of the best hiphop shows I've ever witnessed. Saw Kanye in June, he gave a decent performance, but nothing special (except the fact that he had his DJ play a A-Ha track and Kanye announced that it's one of his all-time favorite songs).

gotta co sign on EDAN. hot hot hot.

Jazzsucka

Saw Edan a few weeks ago in Helsinki. One of the best hiphop shows I've ever witnessed. Saw Kanye in June, he gave a decent performance, but nothing special (except the fact that he had his DJ play a A-Ha track and Kanye announced that it's one of his all-time favorite songs).

seconded. except I thought Kanye was great. And that Edan is a Genious.

Hip hop usually sucks live though...most rappers just can't perform or entertain and don't focus on their show. It's usually really half-hearted. I mean Kanye and Edan really owned the crowd.

33thirdcom

I dunno about Edan. His stuff is cool, and it may have been the crowd more than him (all hipster white kids), but I wasn't impressed when i saw him in LA a few years ago. I saw him in Cincinnati at Scribble Jam a few years before that with a few other artists ( I think jeru) and Edan was alright then. The highlight was him performing his track Sing It Shitface.

Mjukis

Basically, practise makes perfect - you have to do a LOT of shows to get really good at it. And very few hip hop artists do, especially the big ones. Ideally, you'll have a "dope" dj set at a club, and an mc steps up, performs a few tracks without bullshit and whining, and steps off. I'd rather be at a club than waiting for three hours for a show to start anyway, the whole concert format pisses me off more often than not. The fact that I missed Edan in Helsinki is a bummer too, I need to be more in the loop. Don't tell me he played in Stockholm too... dammit.

BeatChemist

Saw Edan a few weeks ago in Helsinki. One of the best hiphop shows I've ever witnessed. Saw Kanye in June, he gave a decent performance, but nothing special (except the fact that he had his DJ play a A-Ha track and Kanye announced that it's one of his all-time favorite songs).

gotta co sign on EDAN. hot hot hot.

Yeah I wanted to catch him in Toronto last weekend, but had to work. Then I read the reviews of the show and I think I missed one of the best hip hop shows to come through in a while...

Burns

nay, i was thinkin' the same thing when i saw TI on MTV awards also,

The emotion can never be expressed or "come across" as it does on the original recording when preformed live. Shitty vocal/midranges always fucks it up.

faux_rillz

The emotion can never be expressed or "come across" as it does on the original recording when preformed live. Shitty vocal/midranges always fucks it up.

Well, delivery has grown a lot subtler over the past fifteen years or so, in ways that don't lend themselves to live performance. The other thing is that rap is now a primarily recorded medium rather than one that's performed live--youg dudes don't hone their stage show, because it's just not a crucial element for success as a rapper. Invariably the best rap shows I've attended have been dudes that came out in the mid eighties or before.

SoulOnIce

I've seen really good live shows from:

BDP
Nice n' Smooth
Tribe Called Quest
Public Enemy
BDK
Black Sheep


A couple of acts I was excited to see who were

Wu Tang

Brand Nubian (they got coined!!)

Kool Keith (I had heard he was great, ran all new verses for
his songs, etc, but he was pretty dull and just went through
a non-stop "medley" that all sounded the same - and he was headlining)


And there were a couple of acts that were better
live than I expected and I gained respect for them:

Del (on the Deltron 3030 tour - let the hatt begin - but he was great!)
3rd Bass (these guys were great showmen!)

bobbydee

Saw Edan a few weeks ago in Helsinki. One of the best hiphop shows I've ever witnessed. Saw Kanye in June, he gave a decent performance, but nothing special (except the fact that he had his DJ play a A-Ha track and Kanye announced that it's one of his all-time favorite songs).

gotta co sign on EDAN. hot hot hot.

Yeah I wanted to catch him in Toronto last weekend, but had to work. Then I read the reviews of the show and I think I missed one of the best hip hop shows to come through in a while...

I flew to another city on a whim, after only catching the end of his set at a festival. Worth every cotdamn cent. Rhyming while beat juggling perfectly on beat is pretty fucking hot. He also beat juggled by lifting the needle on one turntable. Dagha was on point too, they had good on stage energy- seemed to feed of each other.

"That's all just gimmics" bring on the hatt, but to me it showed versatility and talent, as well as showmanship, from an MC i thought was before seeing live, instead of the other way around.

tripledouble

anyone know if he's already been through phily? unitarian church maybe?
hopefully didnt miss the humble magnificent

Flomotion

...how pointlless and annoying it is to watch a rapper and his countless cronies shouting over a prerecorded track.

That pretty much sums up 90% of the live hip hop shows I've worked on or had tickets for. Bad levels, dull beats, pedestrian rapping and the idea that shouting louder makes it more real. Oh, and if lots of you shout, then its even more real 'cos you got your homies from the street up there with you. If the music's whack it doesn't matter how many yo-yo-yo's you shout out, you're still whack and the crowd isn't going to go your way.

Most recent show I went to that fitted this description was the Jungle Brothers. Best hip hop show for me was RUN DMC only about a month before Jay was shot - by no means in their prime but they had beats, rhymes and serious presence without the aid of on-stage chorus of hulking talentless idiots. I've seen some great live hip hop shows but they're few and far between. Yes,I'm mad, doggie.

nzshadow

mostly nay, but sometimes yay!

In Amsterdam there's always an extra chance that a show will become a Nay.. I've seen a lot of acts give really really lousy shows cause they were to stoned on Amsterdam weed..

Fuck yes.

or then when they do show (late) and manage to string a sentance together, all we get is "Amsterdaaaaaaaam! red light district!, weeeeeeed!"

Ive stopped going to hiphop shows for this very reason.

grumblegrumble

Bsides

The emotion can never be expressed or "come across" as it does on the original recording when preformed live. Shitty vocal/midranges always fucks it up.

Well, delivery has grown a lot subtler over the past fifteen years or so, in ways that don't lend themselves to live performance. The other thing is that rap is now a primarily recorded medium rather than one that's performed live--youg dudes don't hone their stage show, because it's just not a crucial element for success as a rapper. Invariably the best rap shows I've attended have been dudes that came out in the mid eighties or before.

yeah, thats pretty on point, i didnt really think about it like that. Kinda sad though too.

I have to say that i still have a soft spot for cronies yelling over pre-recorded tracks in the right kind of club setting. 3 six mafia shows were always pretty crazy. It was a fun time even if the performance wasnt technically amazing.

Ian_D

Ugly Duckling and Saul Williams are high quality live acts as well.

i really gotta agree with that i saw Ugly Duckling in Bristol with Giant Panda, who also rocked the crowd, the place was nearly falling down by the end of the show.
I Can't wait to see UD again in November, i have yet to see People Under The Stairs that i have been looking forward to since i picked up Next Step all those years ago, with Giant Panda Supporting the place WILL go nuts.

HAZBEEN

youg dudes don't hone their stage show, because it's just not a crucial element for success as a rapper.

I'm sure the above is true, but do you think that show sales are making dudes more $$$ than cd sales? Given how popular downloading is & how tough it is to make money off of cd sales, you'd think that the live show would still play a factor.

hammertime

The Coup have a cool live band.

faux_rillz

youg dudes don't hone their stage show, because it's just not a crucial element for success as a rapper.

I'm sure the above is true, but do you think that show sales are making dudes more $$$ than cd sales? Given how popular downloading is & how tough it is to make money off of cd sales, you'd think that the live show would still play a factor.

Yeah, a lot of rappers make their real money off touring, but I think most people decide whether or not to go see them based on how much they like the recorded music rather than what they've heard about the live show. It's unfortunate that rappers are not giving people their money's worth in the live setting but, like I said, in terms of their career, they don't really have to.