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Heltah Skeltah @ Scritch and Scratch

Shouts to everybody that came through and supported the Stand Up! rap showcase. The iNternets Celebrities were in full effect. Mighty Healthy’s street rep 40 Diesel held us down. Jay Smooth from Ill Doctrine posted up in that piece. Jimmy Valentime had his mixtapes in his backpack as usual. Shit was Hip-Hop.

Hired Gun opened the show and set the night off right with his energy. Dude spits his carefully crafted verses with emphasis and emotion. He gave us a freestyle off the dome and the rest of his catalog. My only crit for Hired Gun would be to trim this set down to four songs. His rhymes are dense and require so much attention that after five songs you feel like you have read Dostoevsky. Props to dude for using the word ‘proletariat’ in his rhymes.

Donny Goines got on next and that’s when the show really got Hip-Hop because that was when the technical difficulties started to show up. To his credit Donny Goines worked through the glitches and still spit his fire. You can hear the Harlem sound in his rhyme flow. Imagine if Jim Jones had lyrics that were worth listening to? That would be Donny Goines. I liked the length and the strength of his set. You could tell Donny Goines practices his flows too. I think he has a good shot at getting on with one of the Harlem-based rap cliques when they decide to make real Hip-Hop rhymes part of their repertoire.

Up next was the young gunner from the B.X. – Cause. This dude is the most polished and has the greatest potential from the showcase artists that performed. He has a calculated delivery and he can go from the meditative style of a Rakim to the hyperfast spit of a Twista. We joke on Cause because he is only 21yrs old and he has two managers, a hype man a back up singer and a camera crew. Cause took the HBO show to heart and got his own ‘Entourage’. You are going to hear more good things about this emcee sooner than later.

We had a special guest performance from Hakim from Channel Live. Hak definitely has lyrics and his flow allows them to penetrate your brain at the perfect angle. Unfortunately, Hakim brought his entire catalog and his weedcarriers along as well. What should have been a tight ten minute set was extended to over twenty minutes. It wasn’t just Hakim but every artist that performed who indulged themselves in a few extra bars. I can’t blame them either because that is what they were there for. To spit their shit. It was our job as presenters to vett the artists and outline what we needed from them. If there is a next time I think we will do a better job of maintaining a flow of energy from the artists to the audience.

N.Y. Oil was next to the stage and all of his years in the music business has honed him into a fantastic performer and artist. His crowd interaction was perfect and appeared effortless. This is how artists remain in this business for over ten years. They truly love what they do. N.Y. Oil spit his politically charged, social justice seeking rhymes with hubris, humility and humor. If you wanted to see how good Hip-Hop could be with a real emcee then N.Y. Oil was worth the price of your admission.

Finally we got the treat we had been keeping in the stash. Big Ruck a/k/a SEAN PRICE was in the building and he had a set to give us. How many rappers have gotten better over the last fifteen years? Not too many. How many have been consistently good? Ruck killed the underground rap scene with his album ‘Monkey Barz’. He singlehandedly brought Duck Down Records back into prominence. This is that backpack rap with the gat in the goosedown. Not no murder-death-kill bullshit but the spit that says rhyming is about respect for self and the team. ‘Jesus Price Superstar’ has been the confirmation that the underground rap scene is where Hip-Hop shall live on forever.

P-Body

At The End Of The Day

Ruck Joint

Boom Bye Yeah

How about a Brand Nubian reunion for the next Stand Up! showcase?

Holler at your boy RAFI.

respecting the video link’s fresh: 33Jones

This entry was posted on Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 12:34 pm and is filed under Billy Sunday @ XXL, Crappers, Ghetto Celebs, iNternets Celebrities, Sneaker Fiends United, T.O.N.Y., When I Reminisce.... You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.