May I please be admitted in as one of the loyal opposition.
I have sen some really good hip hop shows, even some great ones, but if anything in this world lens itself to two turntables and a microphone it is hip hop and watching Eminem’s set last night (I know, I’ll write it up, probably tomorrow) all my caveats became clear.
I mentioned this briefly on the B.o.B review as well:
Rakim was better then these guys because Rakim gave into scratching and rhyming whereas the big boys at Yankee stadium didn’t: they wanna be rock bands but they need a clarity of sound for the hooks to do more than become a blur of bass moves.
So one way to perform rap live is by performing RAP and not by performing hybrid rap from the 90s as done by the guys last night .
Instead, Eminem and Jigga do the rap/rock chorus/rap ad nauseum: the move from the large sample to the original chorus and during the chorus you can hear the song but during the rap all you can hear are verbal tics. Eminem does “Love The Way You Lie” or Jigga does “Empire”, the only place where the songs completely click is during the chorus.
Compare this to, say, Fuzzy G where the rock group experience is so well integrated into the raps they are seamless. A song like “Optimistically Speaking” is a first rate pop move where the rap and the rock song can’t be separated but you can’t say that about these old timers. Last night all you could see were the seams showing.
Maybe that’s what you get when middle aged billionaires roll out the hits.