The following is copied from his post
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lol....
1. Oct 1996, Lincoln U. i always tell the story of how we ran away from home after kurt cobain died. i kinda described it as us running for cover from a hostile environment (the gangsta marketplace) until the smoke cleared. we were the fat kid who got picked on in junior year who spent the whole summer in the gym and came back senior year a MONSTER. europe was the gym. and our return in mid 1995 after a year over there made a new unstoppable monster.
or so we thought.
we spent that year opening for the beastie boys and doing small clubs. we thought we were cool. and then our hometown station power 99 booked us for a show at the homecoming with kid capri, the lost boys, and us.
man.
lemme preface with lincoln u is the projects of the edumuhcation system. that one show taught me EVERYTHING i needed to know about what i was about to face for the next 15 years of my life.
black people will NEVER feel us.
i mean we brought our A Game
we were jazzing it up.
scatting and shit
rahzel was in rare form beatboxing his ass off.
i could do hip hop breaks on drums like "top billin" and "mona lisa"
man...it was like we were onstage getting blow jobs from kittens in front of the spca.
and then...tariq was like "wtf?!?! this is our hometown!"--
"do a show in philly niggas wouldn't applaud...nobody know your record nor who you opening for....."
them mofos boo'd us.
thank god rahzel was making jokes about it backstage. we truly thought we were done. kinda weird that we were making "adjustments" so that we can get the "white beastie boys" crowd...."but go back to normal" when we go home...when all the while that "white beastie boy crowd" was home.
2. Providence RI, 1996. The last day of The Roots/Jeru Tha Damaja tour. We were all sick. i mean on reflection? we were kinda bratty. since then we've learned that the show must go on. but being newbies we were like "why should we give you energy when yall standing there like mummys. so riq turned his back to the crowd on some "fuck yall" there were some jeers and we stopped the show.
3. Sept 1996, NYNY after being on geffen for 3 years the ENTIRE brass decided to see what the hoopla was about concerning this great group they signed. this is a rock label. and we are their guinea pigs for hip hop. so we wanted an exemplary show. rehearsed all hard and shit.....all i gotta say is: open bar and old dirty bastard equals "!@#%$^%#!@$"
i wasn't even mad that he ruined the show. i was mad that this show was witnessed by the president of geffen and he never got to see us in our glory. just saw a bunch of niggas onstage brawling.
4. Nice Jazz Festival 1999. they wanted our db level down to 80. cause it was "jazz festival" our normal shit was 130 dbs. we almost got arrested.
5.Milwaukee Wi 2001, sprite liquid mix tour. a speaker fell ontop of a crew member and killed him after a show
6. Chicago House Of Blues 2000. Scratch had an asthma attack and ran across the street to get his medicine. thinking he was a chicago thug the po po outside was like "yeah nice try the band is onstage" when scratch tried to gain re entry.---he was like "my solo is coming up please let me in" he had no pass and he didn't wanna face my wrath. so he was like "fuck it"----and RAN. but obviously not fast enough for they rodney kinged him to the floor and noone could verify if he belonged onstage. meanwhile we were clowning him like "where the fuck is scratch?!?!"--man i was like "im docking the SHIT out this mofo" i was so mad i didn't even pick the phone up from a random philly number (his parents) that whole night. lobby call was 8am and we were like "we cutting him off son"....we were on the road when i was checking machine only to find out...."ahmir....my son needs you to bail him out!! help!!!"
damnit!!!!!!
7. Goodie Mob and The Roots House of Blues Chicago 1998. Outkast came out to do a mini set and set that stage ablaze. so we about to suffer from crowd exhaustion (crowd was on they feet all night) so it was clear that Goodie was gonna win this one. then to really add insult to injury, me and kamal have a near fist fight argument over his girlfriend standing onstage. so he walks off stage right on our triumphant one/two "clones"/hip hop 101 punch and the only savior was Common who played his "gaining one's definition" on piano. it was so anticlimatic. we got banned from the hotel across the street after we stormed that mofos room hurling tables and coffee machines and tvs. im shocked we aint get arrested. next night we were cool again.
8. Beck Tour 1996. Iowa. we were at a masonic temple slash concert hall. and he had the brilliant idea of doing the entire show in white ninja tshirt masks. (think ghostface on cover of first wu album) all because we heard the klan started in this particular town. the natives weren't too happy. someone hurled a bottle on stage.
9. RCMH, NY NY 2006 show 1. i won't say it was "the worst" show...but i had waaaaaaay bigger plans for that show than executed. Ghost and Rae stood us up. Nas forgot all his lyrics (so i cut "One Love" and "New York State Of Mind" (and then Tom B from status aint hood had the nerve to snark on tariq saying he could learn a thing or two from Nas (negating the fact that a well publicized beef with the biggest mc of 2001 was so newsworthy it actually gave his career a new light) Kweli was on nigger time coming all late forcing me to put common on waaaaaaaaaay earlier than when i wanted to. our "host" of the evening backed out last minute (hello dave!.....his night two appearance was a "kiss and make up sorry ahmir gesture") and not to mention the wolfers blew out. we pretty much were left holding the ball all because noone in our field had the same seriousness and professionalism we did. night two more than made up for it.
10. Paris France, 1995. The headliner MC Solaar INSISTED that we headline (see that Roots/Erykah Greek Theater post) instead of him. He pulled a fast one on us with some "flatter them" type ish saying we are headline worthy and we will murder him onstage.
DUH!
next thing we knew. we are in a Red Rocks type of venue. overlooking the sky. so beautiful. 4 acts came on (one dude i swear to god did like 4 cuts from ODB's just released Return To The 36 Chambers like it was HIS record.---well...Solaar (whom back then was pretty much the Kanye of his time) comes onstage with his big ass production (we NEVER seen a video screen as backdrop before)--well this dude is a teen heartthrob and the reason they all came. next thing we knew we were getting pumped backstage and ....
the entire stadium emptied.....
7000 people.
and now there were about 480 standing in the front.
bastard.
after that i NEVER EVER headlined a show.
and even when it was our show i came up with the format of mix n match so you had 0 clue as to who was coming up next. that shit was traumatic son.
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and now for some perfunctory visuals
This is some graphic design work I did from a photo taken at the corner of pacific and seymour.
1 comment:
Great post!
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