Photo by DAN LONG
I hate to say it, but hip-hop shows nowadays bore me. You have a DJ sitting on a computer, looking as though he is just choosing songs from iTunes. Seem like I never see DJs actually scratching these days, I just see them pushing a button and waving their hands in the air. And it seems as though MCs have lost a lot of the energy you used to see at showsback in the day. But after watching the KRS-One show last night MY FAITH HAS BEEN RESTORED! As KRS-One took the stage a few graffiti artists start working away at blank canvases. The DJ was actually scratching and mixing songs together and you can see B-Boys breaking in the center of the crowd. With all of this happening around you all at once you feel the sheer essence of Hip-Hop has taken over the building. KRS doesn’t just perform his songs from his insanely large catalogue, he also freestyles in between songs making a smooth transition between tracks. Some of his freestyles, espcially those about the origin and evolution of hip-hop, made you feel less like you were attending a rap concert and instead were in the pews for a hip-hop sermon. The crowd hung on his every word. People that were born in the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s were all wilding-out like they were 18 again. With everyone jumping around with arms raised you could tell that this man’s music speaks across generations, that it contains multitudes. — CLAYTON RUSSELL