How High?

"10 9 8 7 6 5 4/
3 2 Murder 1 lyric at your door/
Tical bring it to that ass-raw/
Breakin all the rules like glass-jaws/
Nigga, you got to get mine to get-yours"

How High - Methodman and Redman

What do you get when you put some of hip hop's biggest names together? I don't mean big as in Nelly/Ja Rule/50cent. I'm talking real artists. Not that "good music/soul music" that Bosco talks about either. I mean straight hip hop gangsta rap. I'm talking about The Ticallion Stallion. Brick City's Funk Doctor. The Godfather of Noize. Premo. JS-1. For those not down with real hip hop I mean Methodman,Redman, Rahzel, DJ Premier and DJ JS-1.

Last Saturday nite at the Hordern Pavillion was crazy. I was hoping that the $90 I paid for the Buggn tour would go longer than the estimated 80 mins advertised. If you've got such a stellar lineup surely we could squeeze some more tracks out them. I was not disappointed, as the artists played a combined 3 hour set. Meth/Red were still on the stage when I walked out.

Premo came on first and straight killed it. Dropping classics like KRS 1's "You Must Learn", Group Home, Onyx's "Slam", NWA, his own Gangstarr tracks as well as educating the crowd with that he called "the real sh*t" - tracks from the 80's. Gotta show some love for the East Coast beats that he dropped. I think Premo could have played anything and I would have still loved it. He's not really a performance DJ - as in he doesn't do tricks, he just drops mad beats and scratches them up occassionally.

Next up was Philly native, Rahzel (aka The Godfather of Noize). He was cool and did some impressive beatboxing. My fav that he did was "All I know". I love the way he does his own rapping, scratch effects, with his own voice. He actually battled DJ JS-1. JS would drop a beat from a famous track, and Rahzel would replicate it as best he could. It was awesome when he did the Kanye "Jesus Walks" melody. And you know he couldn't walk off without doing "If your mother only knew". The crowd went nuts when he did the bassline, the melody and the chorus, with his voice at the same time. Simutaneously fool. I have to admit though, some of his sound effects started to sound very repetitive, particulary the sratching sounds. Though nothing beats the female "please enter your password".

The main act of the night was the infamous duo, M.E.T.H and Red. They came at us all night with so much energy and flowed so well together. Started off by dropping tracks they did together from the Blackout LP and their other joint venture album. However my highlights are when they did their own songs - like Redman's "Time for some Akson" or when Methodman did the main bars for "M.E.T.H.O.D Man.". And of course they did "How High". Twice in fact - the normal version and the Toni Braxton remix. You know the crowd went beserk like when Bannister transforms into Hulk.

Again, I hate to admit this since it was such a mad concert, but towards the end of their set, I didn't recognise a lot of their songs and did get boring and repetitive. The best part of the night was when it seemed like the show was about to finish and they were giving shoutouts. I thought, aiight cool I've got my money's worth, I'm gonna jet.

But as they were playing music in the background and packing up their gear and randomly saying words, Methodman starts doing some freestyling. In fact, they decided since it was the last show they would do it for a bit longer. Meth pulled Rahzel who was on the stage in the background, into the front and told him to do his thing. So Rahzel drops the beat of "Wu Tang Clan ain't nothing to f with" with Meth pulling some the illest freestyles I've heard. I've always been skeptical of impromptu freestyles, since they don't really sound, well, impromptu. I'm not sure if that one was, but it was all gravy baby.

One thing I want to mention, is that I felt a bit uncomfortable with all the references to weed. If you don't know these artists that well, 50% of their content is about weed. Personally, I don't think I'll ever touch the stuff. Not that there's anything wrong with it, its just a personal choice not to get high. (Although I did smoke this massive apple tabacco pipe the other day - but I digress cos that's different).

I mean they kept telling the crowd "to roll that sh*t, light that sh*t, smoke that sh*t" and there were peeps everywhere smoking it. A lot of hip hop concerts I go to its like that but this one seemed even more than usual. The artists themselves were getting blunted on the stage with massive joints.

Funny moment of the night: They did a song with the line "If you see a bag of dope, what do you do? Pick it up/Pick it up/Pick it up". And you know what happened? Someone actually chucked a baggy with some sticky icky onto the stage and Street Life (a support rapper) actually picked it up. Hilarous.

Overall? I give the concert a 9.3 out of 10. Very entertaining, definently got my money's worth. All the artists lived up to their reps. For anyone that read's Humanity Critic's latest blog comments, there will be no post adjustment like Biggie's Ready to Die LP.

Peace Out,

DJ HO

1.

p.s. Did y'all know that AND1 mixtape tour is coming to Sydney on December 3rd? If you wanna go, holla back playa.

p.p.s. Best ad ever? Gotta be the brand Jordan ad with the Common sonudtrack. It combines my fav song "BE" with Jordan. Ain't nothing sweeter. Click here .