Your best/worst experience at a live hip hop show

[Jonny]

Best:

Seeing The Pharcyde anytime I got a chance. Always the dopest live shows.

One of the best single events I ever saw was at the House of Blues. It was Funkdoobiest, The Liks, Aceyalone (and friends) and Pharcyde.

I saw Ralph M hauling ass down the Sunset holding his 1200. 10 minutes later he was killing it...jumped on stage and starting breakdancing..

when the Liks came out they did their thing and sprayed the crowd with a couple 40'z.

Acey fucking killed it and brought out the whole crew to perform Feet on your Table. Everyone tore it up crazy..

Pharcyde closed it out. They were the Kings of LA for a minute. They shut it down with Pass the Pipe.

---

I've seen some bad shows. De La were wack as fuck back around 94. I was hoping for some Dead/Mindstate b-side shit and they did a 3 Feet High 12". I had heard Buddy and Me Myself & I enough to be fine never hearing either again.

One highlight from that show was they performed CHildrens Story and some Cypress Hill records. That was dope.

Another thing was they pulled three fools out of the crown to battle. 1 fool was from NY and probably was part of their team. He was out of place. The other was some sexy as fuck asian chich and the other was some big fool.

So the chick rhymes and people laugh at her. The guy from NY gets on and he's solid. the big guy gets up throws his head back and RIPS the fuck out of the mic. He had this crazy voice and the crown went crazy. Pos eyes get huge and he slappin 5's with Dave. Nobody knew him at the time but the fool was Charli 2NA.

Funny but wack part was the were all "battling" for a prize and De La was to choose the winner. 2NA was the obvious choice but they gave it to the east coast guy. Charli was openly pissed and he stormed off the stage.

We ran in to him 3 years later at a club called The Breaks when J5 was first breaking and he was trippin we recognized him from that performance.

but De La was still wack that night.


-----------

another wack show was every other time I saw Freestyle Fellowship. When they put it together it was sick as fuck but those times Myka 9 couldn't remember any of his rhymes (which was half the time) was pretty much pathetic.

[battlecatmeowstab212]

worst:
i recently (within the last 3 years) saw the clipse at the knitting factory. the place was way too packed and a million degrees. they went on mad late and ab liva and sandman did most of the rapping. the performed for like 25 minutes. it sucked dick.
on a side note, after the show i saw them all (the whole re-up gang) drive off , stuffed into a tiny sedan. for some reason, i assumed they would have a doper car.

I was in the can of sardines for that evening, up in the mezzanine, to see this atrocity go down. Tom Breihan went on to write how awesome the show was the next day, giving it a largely glowing review. I remember being so pissed off, I gave a response:

"I love rap music, kids. I just don't like halfassed live shows." You said that a month ago. You'll forgive my intuition Tom, but 9 times out of 10, the underground scene/"Okayplayerification" (as you more than likely call it) is much more adept to putting on live shows that are actually worth the money spent. This show in particular, which I did have the unfortunate karma of attending believe it or not, was a good example of the kind I personally would avoid if blessed with such clairvoyance about the scene (one which you apparently have failed at grasping yourself).

Then he went on write another faggot ass review of one of their mixtapes a few years later, only to be called out by them personally about how inaccurate the review was. Go figure.

edit: so I guess it's not so much that I block out the bad experiences, I just tend to write about them online and then almost forget I did years later.

This wasn't the CMJ show in November 2006 with Trae the Truth, was it? I remember being in the second row for one of my last 'I'm under 21 and luuuuuuuuuuuuuuv rap music' concert experiences and really liked the show. It might have been because, I that point, I was a pretty big Clipse hater but Trae was my most-listened to rapper and he put on one of the top five most disappointing performances I had ever seen, which ruined some of his music for me. And in my "might as well stay" disarray, I thought Clipse tore it down.

[SYM]

This wasn't the CMJ show in November 2006 with Trae the Truth, was it? I remember being in the second row for one of my last 'I'm under 21 and luuuuuuuuuuuuuuv rap music' concert experiences and really liked the show. It might have been because, I that point, I was a pretty big Clipse hater but Trae was my most-listened to rapper and he put on one of the top five most disappointing performances I had ever seen, which ruined some of his music for me. And in my "might as well stay" disarray, I thought Clipse tore it down.

Different show. This one was earlier that year, in March.

[The Afronaut]

Funny but wack part was the were all "battling" for a prize and De La was to choose the winner. 2NA was the obvious choice but they gave it to the east coast guy. Charli was openly pissed and he stormed off the stage.

We ran in to him 3 years later at a club called The Breaks when J5 was first breaking and he was trippin we recognized him from that performance.

Dope story.

[aeokq]

Best:

I was in Geneva, Switzerland for the summer back in like 2002. Wandering around the city I saw a flier for a Non Phixion show. I went and was like the only American in the crowd. Kicked it with the group after the show, talked to Sabac for a while, gave them their props on the album(The Future is Now). Even got to kick a little freestyle on stage for all the Swiss hip hoppers ha. Cool shit.

Worst:

By far this was the worst experience ever. I was at venue in Irvine, CA. I forget the club, piece of shit place. Anyway, it was a Rakim & Kool Keith show. Fucking Rakim and Kool Keith. Anyway, nothing happened on stage for a good hour. Finally Supernatural comes on stage to do his thing. He starts off with his 3 words thing, y'all know what I'm talking about. The first two people give him some easy shit like "table" or something. He asks for the final word, and I motion him over. I give him the word, "leprechaun." He nods his head and says, "I like that." So he starts to spit, and my homey sparks up a blunt. I take like two hits, and some security faggots grab us and throw us out the club. What the fuck, I've never had a problem smoking weed at a show except there, this is Cali. So not only did I miss Rakim & Kool Keith, but I didn't hear Supernat kick my word. Fuck.

[erocc]

Best:

The Return of Word of Mouth: A Benefit Show for Keith Tamashiro (May 2006 at The Mezzanine in SF)
Jurassic 5, Dilated Peoples, The Beat Junkies, Supernatural, Cut Chemist & Shortkut (filled in for DJ Shadow), Lyrics Born
They only did 2 of these shows, 1 in LA and 1 in SF. Amazing.

Full Circle Tour (Oct. 2003 at The Bluebird in Bloomington, IN)
Hieroglyphics, Little Brother, Encore, Z-Man
Hiero was great and everyone was there, but Little Brother tore the roof off.