It was a rainy Saturday evening when I arrived at Santo’s Party House. The doors were scheduled to open at 7pm but I arrived early with Iman since we were interviewing Shinobi Ninja. I had just started listening to them no more than a week prior, but having listened to everything on their myspace page and some youtube videos, I was excited (By the way, their EP Brooklyn To Babylon is available for FREE download from them via their myspace; check it out).
Genre-wise, they are not easy to categorize. On their webpage they are self proclaimed “Visual / Hip Hop / Death Metal.” Hmm, I was left scratching my head. However, my mantra is, never judge a band by it’s genre. From the songs I had listened to online, they was a diverse mix of sounds and genres. They was some significant variation between songs, and within songs there was a melding of sounds that you might not think should go together. Some tracks really remind me of the The Beastie Boys, like “Rock Hood” and “Stop!”
The concert finally began a bit after 7:30. I found it to be surprisingly uncrowded, but bad weather tends to keep people at home. A band called Nacirema kicked it off. Led by two brothers singing together, they performed well, and got the crowd pretty into it. They did a solid 30 minute set with about 6 songs. Their guitarist played some really great riffs. Their sound was a little too hard for me, but I can still appreciate it, and respect it.
Following them was Anton Glamb and the Rad Out Crew. Funny because I didn’t know Anton was performing, and I went to college with him at Columbia and haven’t seen him perform in over 2 years. He performed with his Rad Out Crew and a female vocalist Santhya. They did a about a 45 minute set, some songs featuring Anton, some with Santhya, and others with various members of the Rad Out Crew. But all of them were bumpin’ and rockin’ the whole time on stage. Adriano Morez of Shinobi Ninja even got in the mix for the last couple songs. They were no live musicians for their set, they only had a DJ spinning their tracks while they performed. It sounded very electronic and hip-hop, but there may have been few live recorded instruments in the mix. The only song I recognized from their myspace was “We Party Everyday” which I enjoyed. The other tracks had good energy and the crowd was enjoying it, even with a little moshpitting going on up front.
Finally Shinobi Ninja came out at around 9:15. They opened with “Brooklyn to Babylon” and WOW! I had watched the video for this single which was just released in the last couple of weeks, but they just blew me away live. The music was rocking. DA and Baby Girl were belting the vocals and keeping the energy high with their enthusiasm. Adriano Morez did some sweet jumps while jamming on his bass. Needless to say, I was impressed. They followed up with “Rock Hood” which was also a great performance. I looked around and saw that the whole crowd was feeling it too. Unfortunately they were only able to do two more songs, for a grand total of 4 songs and barely a 20 minute set which was sorely disappointing. (Iman and I spoke to Baby Girl after they came off stage and she said that they only had the venue until 10:30 and Black Sheep still had to perform.) Nevertheless, it was a great set, and they concluded with a screening of their music video for Brooklyn to Babylon.
The fact that it got cut short worked out for me, since I had to be somewhere at 10. Therefore, I unfortunately did not get to see Black Sheep.
I will most certainly be following Shinobi Ninja and looking forward to future releases and performances. They should be releasing their first full length album in the near future.
Bottom Line: see Shinobi Ninja live.