hi,
just to follow up on a couple of recent threads about shadow's
production technique and the latryx sound, i saw them, together
with jeru tha damaja and de la soul last friday at the house of
blues in la. first off, this was a great show. a really great mix of
hip-hop styles and my only regret was that premier wasn't manning the
decks for jeru. i can't remember the last live 4.5 hour show that kicked
it from start to finish that i've been to. yes 2 hours, but not more
than 4!
not surprisingly the order was latyrx/shadow, shadow, jeru, and de la
soul. the highlights were seeing and hearing shadow in action, and
jeru's showmanship.
latyrx' performance fell a little flat partly
because of the audience, and partly because they got pissed at the
audience. basically, at 9pm things weren't bumping. lyrics born and
lateef worked well with shadow bringing in the beats and samples
pretty smoothly. its fun to watch the dj work the decks when you can
see the rappers moving onto something new. nothing like a bit of
pressure add adrenalin. the beats were good and the rap,
while incomprehensible, had a different rhythm to most. that said,
i'm not sure i'm into the simultaneous rapping. need to try the
album.
shadow then had the stage to himself in which he played a selection
from endtroducing and his older 12"s. as you might hope, he reworked
the sound on all the tracks, mixing in pieces where you hadn't heard
them before and supplementing his work with a wide spectrum of world
music from various ages. since he was essentially making new tunes on the
spot, with the backbone from his other work, it was interesting to see
how he brought it together.
i'm no equipment expert, but i'll describe what i saw: he had 6
pieces of equipment on the stage. 2 decks, mixer, some kind of pc
hardware, and two sampler style machines (the kind that make a sound
when you play a button that you program). It seemed that most of his
endtroducing stuff came from the "pc" which he then added to. the organ
section from endtroducing (can't remember which song - its really
long) came from a "sampler" which he played like a mini-keyboard.
during the show he moved between the different machines pretty
deftly. short of deconstructing tracks into their elements, that's as
far as I can go. I especially liked the use of the "get high, look
inside yourself, in back and in front of yo'self ..." vocal. totally
great and insightful, no? :). one other thing, shadow is definitely a
well earned moniker (sp?). he hardly addressed the crowd and at the
end of his set, just left the stage in the blink of an eye.
the crowd built for jeru pretty well. he came out in a cape from the
italian flag, no shirt, trademark hat and regulation sagging pants.
he was a sight. i love that man's voice. it's just great. he had us
chanting and shouting along, pretty funny doing the chorus to "da
bichez" - sorry if that's not pc, but it was funny. besides, if you
know jeru's lyrics, it's clear that he definitely uses
"sophisticated" techniques to mock/criticise the scene. later on in
the show he had us making "kung-fu music" which he laid raps on top
of. then he had us working in some kind of harmony. lotsafun.
following was de la soul, and i have to say it was a come down from
jeru. he seemed so fresh that it made de la's show look far too
rehearsed. maceo didn't even need to man the decks apart from to get
some (pretty sad) scratching sound effects. can't you sample that
anyway? he just paused his digital recording occasionally. another
complaint i need to get off my chest is the way i felt i was back in
those cheesey discos in england (the world over probably) where the dj
has his special mix of all those favourites in 2 minute bursts (ymca +
abba + grease + thriller + ...) so the audience doesn't get bored (!)
with the beats. they moved too slickly from song to song without enough
pauses to enjoy the tracks. that said, they put on a good show, and
you (well, I) can't fault the music. they have an impressive body of work out
there.
so there you have it, three/four different faces of hip-hop in one
show. well worth the loot.
bijan