The set-up was simple, JV even; the milk crates stacked in the front of the stage lent a hint of old school humility. But from this modest scene in Leede Arena sprang forth energy so strong that it spun the flows, beats and LP cuts of a handful of talented MCs and DJs into a show that stunned.
Radiating enthusiastic energy, the headlining group, Jurassic 5, kicked off Saturday night's show with a set that included "Influence," "Great Expectations," "W.O.E." and "Monkey Bars." With Chali 2na, Akil, Zaakir and Marc 7 on the mics and DJs Cut Chemist and Nu-Mark at the turntables, J5 was the paradigm of rhythmic coordination. Layering clever harmonies on top of funk-sampled beats, the group sounded better than ever. Their style may be reminiscent of old school tracks, but the unique tunes that they laid out for the crowd proved fresher and more innovative than the majority of the label-driven gangsta rap that has come to overshadow the genre. "Concrete Schoolyard," a song off the EP released prior to the widely acclaimed "Quality Control," was downright inspirational.
The MCs' delivery was seamless. The four bounced the rhyme back and forth like a rubber ball, even putting the mic out to floor for some audience participation. The DJs had their moment too; they had the stage to themselves for an incendiary interlude of beat-trading and scratching, during which Cut Chemist picked up a turntable and played it like an instrument for the crowd to see.
The title track of "Quality Control" was another hit, and Chali 2na grinned as he let his smooth deep voice roll out bantering lines. The crew's willingness to interact with the fans, and to come down onto the floor, speaks to their adherence to the widely espoused concept of "keeping it real." And while they proved that they are indeed real, the show itself was unreal, too amazingly impressive and too intensely intimate to fathom.
The vibe was personal from the start. The opener, Mr. Lif, started off the night by kicking flows in which he spoke directly to the crowd, delivering his artistic and political messages. He and his fellow MC, Insight, dropped rhymes that pointed to the intelligence and creativity of the younger performers coming up from the underground.
After a brief lull following the wrap of Mr. Lif's set, the crowd was hit with a bout of lyrical fireworks courtesy of MC Supernatural. Sauntering onto stage with an aura of kicked-back cool, the MC raised the temperature in the room as soon he opened his mouth. He proved the true capacity of the live hip-hop show to stun the senses in his scintillating "The Adventures of the MC and the Light Man." Using vocal commands spun into deft rhymes to change the lights, Supernatural lived up to his name; his music expanded into the realm of the visual and let him play with the atmosphere on stage.
Even more impressive to the crowd were his verbal antics when he spun flows around objects from the audience, including a crutch and a Dartmouth ID.
Later, when he asked the audience for three intelligent and creative words, the crowd had more trouble than one would expect from a crowd of Ivy League students. The best we could offer were a handful of words lifted from an SAT vocabulary list: eloquent, stupefy, and meticulous. The true power of Supernatural's skill was revealed as he took these mediocre choices and wound them so tightly into an improvisational rhyme that he ended up making them sound far more intelligent and creative than they had been when offered up from the crowd. Between his sizzling on-the-spot compositions and his eagerness to ham it up in imitations of Biggie, Slick Rick and Busta Rhyme, MC Supernatural delivered a performance that was at once stupefying, meticulous and above all eloquent.
On the floor, the crowd was packed in tight, and towards the front, the temperature rose. Packed shoulder to shoulder in the first several rows were a mob of teens, most of whom were high school students. They seemed awestruck by the energy radiating off the stage, sensing that they were experiencing something far more real than the typical Cristal-drenched MTV rap video. No doubt they felt the music, but it was clear that for many of the kids pressed up against the barricade, this was a mind-blowing introduction to independent hip-hop. When asked if they knew the name of the group who's CD was played between the sets, none could identify the music as that of Dilated Peoples, who preformed alongside J5 during the Word of Mouth Tour. Still, the crowd appreciated the dazzling aural tapestries of beats and rhymes, and the fans went crazy over the numerous personal touches the MCs threw into the mix.
In the end, when the show was over, the MCs stuck around to sign autographs and talk with the fans. As a longtime devotee, I stuck around for about a half an hour until the crowd had dissipated and found myself having a one-on-one conversation first with Akil, and later with Chali 2na. They told me they had done a show earlier that day in Massachusetts and were driving back to Boston that night, making the irrepressible energy they displayed on stage even more impressive. Wiped out from being on the road, Akil said that he was looking forward to flying back to California to record their upcoming 6-song release.
Surging up out of the LA underground scene, J5, formed in 1993, is now cutting songs under the Interscope label at a furious pace. Even so, they still are committed to doing live shows. When I asked Marc 7 about the nature of the crowd that came out tonight, I was wondering whether he thought that this crowd of ingenues "felt" the music. He was surprisingly gracious, asserting that as long as people came out to appreciate the music, then he was happy to be on stage. The inclusive attitude of all the members of the crew showed that these men are truly living embodiments of the positivity and openness that they promote in their songs.
