3 concerts
2009 have started out as good as 2008 was when it came to quality hiphop concerts, and looking at the schedule for what’s to come later this year it will be a great one! So far it’s been 3 concerts.
Check The Rhyme
This one went down on Betong in Oslo: a classic lineup of 5 groups that became a part of my youth when I grew up and started to listen to hiphop in the first place. My initial thought before buying a ticket was that this could end in disaster with groups showing up late and be a bit dis-organized, but it turned out great! All the groups showed up when they were supposed to and kept to the time schedule!
Jeru The Damaja started the show dropping classics from The Sun Rises in the East. A one-man show that rocked the hard-core fans in the audience, he didn’t have much of a stage show, but the impact that this guy have had on hiphop is legendary.
Next up was Paris a/k/a The Black Panther of Hip Hop: a hard-hitting westcoast rapper that I first encountered with Guerilla Funk back in -94. The set was thight with the distinct sound of Paris showing up ( up-beat and hard ).
Third up was the Alkaholics: these guys still do their thing and serving up classics one after the other.
Lords Of The Underground came up after this and this was the highlight of the evening: rocking the crowd with a (yet another) set of classic tunes( check out the Here Come the Lords album ). This was the group that managed to keep the crowd up and the intensity on stage so high that it really made the night! The set was so good it was worth the entire evening. I hope these guys come back to Oslo in the near future
Finally Beatnuts came on stage and delivered a worthy closure of a evening filled with 90s hiphop
Interesting to see was that there were a lot of younger people in the crowd early on the night, but these faded away quickly so that when LOTUG came on stage it was less people there then when it started….. This was a night for the old-school people that have been around since the early 90s growing up with these groups.
EPMD
EPMD came to Blå to deliver one of the best concerts that I’ve seen, they were only on stage for a good hour, but delivered such a thight set that I couldn’t care less. This was hiphop at its finest!
Too $hort
Last night I went back to Blå to see Too $hort, the okland pimp that goes back 20+ years and 17 albums. The weed smoke was thick and the pimpin factor was high for the disappointingly short 45 minutes that he was on stage ( and what was up with the “dj”, he looked so misplaced he could just have been off stage ).
Image by Vilhelm, my colleague
With these 3 concerts I’ve now seen 7 of the groups that I grew up with in the 90s for the first time live. I just hope more of them are coming out ( must be a lot of 20year anniversaries for a lot of those groups these days )