Bad Boy Reunion Show in Toronto: Mindbender review

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Bad Boy Reunion Show in Toronto: Mindbender review

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http://www.hiphopcanada.com/2016/09/eve ... nion-tour/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

this one is for :pac: and for :biggie:

On the 20th Anniversary of the assassination of Tupac Amaur Shakur, it makes sense to share this shit. Peace to Biggie.

FYI: I'm living my dreams in the real world. Getting paid to fuck, write, show my nude body and sometimes sleep. I'm God and I'm good. I hope you are all doing something meaningful or intelligent with yourselves and the lives you live. Peace out yo.
Editor’s note: As people smarter than myself have previously pointed out, Addi “Mindbender Supreme” Stewart is a genius and a legend among legends when it comes to Canadian hip-hop. As such, his writing needs no editing and his words are presented as he sees fit. Sometimes it’s even all caps, be warned. Any mistakes were intentional. All kidding aside, his review of the Bad Boy Family Reunion Tour stop in Toronto is a great read that will make you mad that you missed the show. He tells you as much in the opening paragraph: “they smashed the fucking world stage to pieces.” Sit back and take it in. This is the word of Mindbender.

Toronto, ON – Bad Boys usually move in silence. But sometimes, like a mafia Godfather trying to shut down the family business and start a legal waste management / construction company, sometimes Bad Boys have one last family reunion tour, and smash the fucking world stage to pieces before they make their retirement to a beach house in Florida officially final. And the Hip-Hop Mafia Godfather of Harlem is on his “victory lap,” as he calls it, as he proceeds to give the people what they need, one last time…

Bad Boy Record’s Grand Finale happened in Toronto and I saw it, for real. Shout-out to HipHopCanada, Stolen From Africa, and Eternia, Kalmplex, Robbie G, who I saw at the show. Good times!

Everything I Love: Bad Boy Concert Review - HipHopCanada.com

A little appetizer, before the main course: I snuck into the No Way Out Tour at the Skydome in like 1997, which featured the line-up with the likes of: Ma$e, 112, Lil’ Cease, The Lox, Lil’ Kim, Busta Rhymes (whose performance I missed because I was sneaking past security going into an upper deck VIP box), and Foxy Brown, Usher, Jay Z, Kid Capri and Black Rob (the last five of whom all did not make it to the Toronto stop, shamefully.)

Nevertheless, I had an amazing time watching hip-hop’s #1 businessman AND villain at the time destroy the Skydome to bits with all the hip-pop Billboard hits, and end the show off with an avalanche of green balloons falling from the sky. Sean Combs was the first one to notoriously utter the phrase “…thought I told you that we won’t stop” and make a perpetual deluge of Bad Boy Records music dominate the charts and the streets of New York, then Canada and America, and then world at large, beginning in the early golden era of the immortal 90’s. And with Bad Boy, as well as the infinitely tragic conflict they had with Death Row Records in the mid 90’s, they did make an everlasting impression upon music, society and culture that will never be forgotten. Still, it’s a new era these days, and there’s a whole new generation, maybe two, that now exist in hip-hop. What does a Diddy do?

“I haven’t heard much about the show… can he even still fill an arena?” Is one of the sentiments I heard in the crowd as I was approaching. Considering the unfortunate careers of so very many people who were once down, the Bad Boy Curse is real to me, and I can’t help but wonder: who’s still cool with Puffy in 2016? Will we see G Dep, Carl Thomas or Craig Mack? I already know there won’t be a Loon or Making the Band segment, ha. Will there be any respect or reference made to Shyne Po? Inquiring minds want to know. And on September 6th, 2016, Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs returned to the stages of the Screwface Capital, with the last artists standing in the Bad Boy Family. Last time they came this deep was when it was still being crowned “T Dot O Dot.” Now, a very popular young man named Aubrey has recently christened it “The 6ix,” and straight up: if there was one name everyone was interested in hearing Diddy speak on all night was Drake, but… nope. The whole show came and went without Love or Hate given to Diddy’s Forbes List Toronto competitor/comrade, to which may just deserve a KANYESHRUG, regardless of “4 AM in Calabasas.” I mean, “No Shopping” does exist, so there’s that. But, I digress. On with the muthafucking show.

Relax your mind and let your conscience be free, you’re now rocking with the man known as P. Diddy…

After a big red digital timer clock counted down to Armageddon on the multi-layered rectangular black stage with massive screen hovering behind, the vibrations in the building were growing intense in anticipation of maybe the last night to get absolutely smashed by classic 90’s R&B/rap magic from one of the greatest hip-hop labels in music history. I remember seeing the first full page ad for Bad Boy Entertainment in a Source Magazine in 1992. It was just a baby with a gunnfinga trigger in his diaper holster, and a Bad Boy Logo. Gangsta shit from day one.

So it was fitting for the concert to start with a home video clip of a baby-faced Sean Combs talking to a reporter in New York in a summery day, asking him his goals and dreams for his new record label… and after a logical amount of self-aggrandizing and hood support, the last thing he says is: “the cream rises to the top.” Cut to Diddy in the “Flava In Ya Ear” video, clinking two bottles together ala the Warriors, and chanting “Baaaaad Booooooys… come out and plaaaay!” which OBVIOUSLY ignited the entire crowd automatically, because fuck yeah. Next: some illustrious and extravagant violins start streaming through the sky, with the elegant strings playing a very familiar melody… gently… confidently…


More video images: Biggie Smalls wearing Versace in the VIP. The “Hypnotize” video. The Bad Boy Logo on some Black leather jackets. All kinds of clips from the last 20 years of history. That one video. That next hit song. That crazy headline. That wild photoshoot. The whole crew. Lil’ Cease. D-Roc. The Mad Rapper. Biggie’s Funeral on Fulton Ave. Nas wearing white fur beside Puff Daddy. Biggie at The Source Awards.

Then, white smoke started billowing from the floor, across the stage on some “heavenly biblical magic is about to happen to y’all fuckers” shit…

Those bells. DONG. Then, all we hear is the Denzel Washington chest-beating monologue from Training Day: “KING KONG AIN’T GOT SHIT ON ME!!” underneath the Rocky-champion horns, as the hype and energy builds and rises to a constellation-high crescendo, and lazer blue-white lights spray and sparkle everywhere with the militant marching towards nirvana masterpiece music… IT’S GETTING ELECTRIC UP IN HERE…

Then one white light shone in the middle of the stage like a vision of Christmas Eve with Black Madonna and Child in a manger… calm… cool…

And then BOOM.

Ladies and gentlemen: the man of the night is here, and his name is Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs. This is what he’s come to say to you people:

“The sun don’t shine forever/ but as long as it still here, then we might as well shine together/ better now than never/ business before pleasure/ P Diddy and the Fam: who you know do it better?!” as the glorious production of the opening track on No Way Out came to conquer Toronto. And it did. Sean Combs’s voice isn’t the most dominant in hip-hop, but it’s HIS voice, and when you hear it, you hear everything you think you know about Harlem’s Own: the hustle, the hurt, the heroic, and the fucking hip-hop essence you know and love or know and hate and love still! Can’t hate the amazing spandex-dripped dancers that came to rock out with him, either. I can’t! Especially since Diddy let the second verse rock as well, featuring the God known as Biggie Smalls: “…you heard of us/ the murderous/ most shady/ been on the low lately, the Feds hate me…” as Puffy hype-manned along while wearing his scorching red leather outfit with gold and platinum crucifix medallions swaying to and fro like whoa. “Francis. M to the Iz-H, Phenomenal/ gun rest under the vest by the abdominal/ rhyme a few bars so I could buy a few cars/ then I kick a few flows so I can pimp a few hoes.” Excellence, by Christopher Wallace.

to be continued: http://www.hiphopcanada.com/2016/09/eve ... nion-tour/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
:joeybats: :ignore: :ff: :kanye: :copy:
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