11:00 pm. Chilling on my bed. My out of control heater seems to have calmed
down a bit, thank god. In preparation for tonights concert I've gotten a bit
over-Quannumed, so I throw outkast in. This album, the new one is really
growing on me. There's a few tracks I could do without, but the dope ones are
hella dope, I must say. But I'm still not feeling anything like I did "git up
git out." So I blast that shit for all my neighbors.

11:20. Where the fuck is this guy. Me and Tyrone are heading to Metro for
the Quannum tour. He's not really up on them, he knows Blackalicious a bit,
but I've convinced him to come thru. I hear the car honk outside, grab the
windbreaker, and walk outside.

We take 90/94 to 55 to Lake Shore Drive. We're listening to some HPK tape
from early 96. That cat who did his ragga shit over the Blahzay Blahzay and
"Ice Cream" beats. Chino XL and Ras Kass "Riiiiot." "Damn this song was
dope! I used to have that last Ras Kass verse memorized but not anymore." I
try to rewind his verse, but good luck deciphering someone else's tape deck
in a dark car. I fuck the shit up and we're on the other end of the tape
somewhere. The end of "I Used to Love H.E.R." instrumental. A few other
joints. Tyrone spends too much time fastforwarding and rewinding.

"I'm a little worried about this crowd. I think it might be a DJ Shadow
crowd. I dig his shit, but he's got a lot of appeal with these trip-hop and
alternative kids. If that's all who turns out, they're gonna be disappointed
cause I don't really think he's gonna do anything, and I'ma be disappointed
cause they ain't gonna show love for Blackalicious and Latyrx."

Up Clark Street. Tape out, put on NUR. Some old BUMS song I've never heard
is on, it's pretty dope. We approach Metro and the line looks ridiculous.
"we better be able to get tickets." I see a lack of melanin and a
preponderance of big pants. "Looks like a Shadow crowd." Parking is as
horrible as ever on the north side, so after a few spins around the block I
get out and into line, while Tyrone searches for parking.

This line is long and not moving. It's about 12, 12:10, show was scheduled
for 12. I'm wearing just a t-shirt under my windbreaker and freezing my ass
off, not understanding how it's supposed to reach 65 degrees Friday. Tyrone
finally comes back, he found a spot not too far away. The lines begins
moving sporadically, but we're still aways from the door. "Yo, there ain't
too many black folks here," Tyrone observes. "True." "Damn, my people are
sleeping! What's up'! My people are sleeping on Blackalicious!" I point out
a black girl walking past us for the end of the line, and another cat behind
us a bit. "Man, I don't know what the problem is! This is our music that we
helped create, and we're not even showing up." He seems a bit distressed,
but gets over it.

The line's moving finally, we get to the door, now I'm being hassled over my
ID. I admit I look ridiculous on my driver's license, as it was about 8 am
when the picture got taken, plus it's out of state, plus the lamination is
starting to peel. Nevertheless I've never had any problem with it before.
This cat is looking at all angles, looking at me, looking confused. "Do you
have anything else?" "Are you serious?" "Yeah, I'm serious!" he snaps. I'm
flabbergasted. I don't look 18? (I'm 23.) "I got something back in the car
like 5 blocks away. What's the problem?" This mark doesn't know what's up,
he hands my id to his partner. This cat looks at it for like 3 minutes and
finally decides it's ok.

We get our tickets, head upstairs. The Shadow rmx of "Meiso" is playing. I
love this joint, I'm rhyming along with it. Alas it's followed by like 6 or
7 straight instrumentals, some trip-hop sort of stuff I guess, some are
straight, but after a few it's kinda boring, I want some shit to rhyme along
with. The dj isn't really doing anything except mixing them. At one point
he starts scratching Public Enemy in but doesn't play it. Bastard. "If this
is DJ Sativa (the unknown guy who was scheduled to be the opener) then he's a
fucking waste."

Finally Sativa quits. Shadow comes out, introduces himself and his partners,
explains they roll as crew and no one is above the others, for the benefit
of, as someone mentioned in another post, the white boys with dreads and
technics bags who have come to worship at the Temple of Shadow. (Actually
immediately in front of me in the line outside was a white dude with dreads,
I was laughing to myself thinking of rmhh.) Shadow runs down the lineup for
the night and then has us give it up for Blackalicious.

Let me begin this part by saying, if there is anyone doubting that the new
Blackalicious album will be dope (and I don't think there is), let me dispel
such notions right now. When I see cats perform new stuff in concert, I
usually don't notice it that much since I don't know it. The one exception
had been when I saw the roots do "Respond/React" a couple years ago, and then
remembered having heard it in concert when the album dropped like 4 months
later. Well Blackalicious did mostly new stuff, and it all stood out, and it
was all dope, and let me tell you that if you thought Gift of Gab was dope,
you were wrong, because he is doper. Gab is kind of a goofy on stage.
Actually so is Lyrics Born. But it don't matter, because anyone who might be
thinking of laughing is quickly amazed by pure mic skills.

So they open up with some new shit. When I first hear songs I don't really
check for lyrics, my natural process is to just notice the beat and flow.
The lyrics kinda seep into my head later. So I'm not going to quote anything
for you, though the few lines I did catch were dope. But I was just
concentrating on Gab's flow. This guy is quite simply on another level. I
just stared up at him in awe and these patterns his words formed. And he
changed it up all the time too. Different rhythmic structures, flowing in
and out of each other. I started getting all these visual images of his
vocals, taking different shapes and fitting themselves into the beats. No I
was not high. Yes it was that amazing. And the crowd was into it. He
asked how many people had heard Melodica. A bunch of people raised their
hands, but there were definitely a lot more down than up. So this was a
crowd basically unfamiliar with him, and he was opening their eyes. It can
be done. He was ripping thru line after line and no one, regardless of
whether you dig rap or not, could deny what he was doing was phenomenal.
Some cats were calling for 40 oz. He did Swan Lake. Breath control was
straight. A couple times on one of his rapid-fire runs he seemed to swallow
a word or two, but he was going so fast it may have just been the next word
right on top of it rather than losing his breath. These new beats are dope
too. Metro has real good sound, real crisp and clear, and you could really
break down these beats. Sick drums. Funky piano loops. For his finale he
performed "A to the G" (I think that's the name, I read about it in Urb.)
Just a bunch of alliterative battle rhymes going thru every letter in the
alphabet. He does A, b, c, d, e, f. Takes a break. "All y'all ready? This
going to turn the stage into a treadmill. I'm not speaking metaphorically.
I mean that." We're ready, we think.

We weren't.

He proceeds to rip letters G to Z, without stopping, with the beat getting
faster and faster and faster, I swear it must have been 150 bpm by the end.
Words are spilling out 10 miles a minute. When he finished he stood there on
stage, black warm up pants, dark blue windbreaker, ugly-ass nikes, cap turned
back, eyes closed, head back, arms in the air, and the crowd went absolutely
bananas. Keep in mind most of them had no idea who he was when stepped on
stage. At this point 90% of them would have bought an album of him shitting
right then and there. Amazing.

Ok, I need to take a break, I'm getting so hyped just thinking about this
again. Part II coming in a couple hours, hopefully.

Blackalicious leaves the stage. The crowd is stunned and stupefied. I will
rain on their parade a bit by saying Chief Xcel was doing his best Ali Shaheed
Muhammad impersonation, i.e., nothing. Didn't matter though.

Shadow comes on to spin some records. He pulls out some nice ones, but this
is not, for the most part, a hip-hop crowd, and I feel like Tyrone and I are
practically the only ones who know some of these songs. Gang Starr ' Check
the Technique, or maybe Form of Intellect, I don't remember Kris ' Break the
Chains OC ' Born 2 Live Fab 5 freddy ' Down By Law Genius ' Phony As You
Wanna Be (sampled by Shadow on Entropy, who remembers')

It takes a minute but finally a circle forms and this one cat starts breaking.
I should say starts uprocking, but never hits the floor. What the fuck?
Finally after a few minutes he does some moves. He's decent, Chicago has
better. Not here though. No one follows him.
"Represent, Chicago!" I yell. I'm sorely tempted to flex some skills myself,
even though I break not at all, I'm so frustrated.
"Ain't this a hip-hop party?" yells the one dude who's danced so far.
Finally a few other people hit the floor, one is pretty good. A sad showing
overall though.

Shadow cuts the music. Introduces Latyrx. I'm not sure if the crowd is
somehow more familiar with them, or the ice has just been broken by
Blackalicious, but they're jumping around from the get. When the beat to,
shit, I don't remember the name, the song where they're a car, comes in, cats
are going crazy. I'm a little bored myself. Well that's too strong a word,
but I'm not that into it. For one, they're doing the same set as I saw a few
months ago, and they're doing all these songs off the Muzappers ep, which I'm
not too into. Nevertheless, Lateef and Lyrics Born are hella charismatic,
and I've never seen two guys seem to have more fun being on stage. I've seen
them 3 times now, which is apparently every time they've been to Chicago, and
they obviously love what they are doing.

Joyo is on stage too, looking pretty nice in a long black skirt, crooning
intermittently. Their Dj (I couldn't understand his name ? Morse? Mars? It
wasn't Quest) is dope, cutting up songs continually. Then they drop the
opening beats of "Latyrx," and cut it off. Whoever thinks this ain't hype is
nuts, I don't think most people knew it, but when that beat started the crowd
was wild. They make sure we're properly pumped up. "This song is going to
blow your mind," I tell Tyrone.

"This is the album, the single, the group, the concept." I've heard it
before. It's still fresh.

They do some freestyling, just like on the album, overlapping each other's
verses. They freestyle at the same time. Their kicking all kinds of styles,
especially Lyrics Born, that dude flexes so many different styles so dopely
it's ridiculous.

It's over. Do we want an encore? Hell yeah. They come back out. I see Gab
looking on from the sidelines. "Deep in the Jungle" I yell. I want to hear
them all together. Instead the Dj drops the beat to "The Quickening" and
Lateef is ripping it. Halfway thru the DJ starts cutting up the beat, turns
it into this reggae bassline which Lateef continues to flow over. Solid.
After the song he does a brief display, I can't see his hands but I hear some
crabs, he's got skills for sure. Now Gab comes out. The crowd loves him and
goes wild.

"Deep in the Jungle!"

No, we get some freestyling. And they mean freestyle in every sense of the
term. Off the top of the head. Different styles. Overlapping each other.
At the same time (not the same lyrics, just at the same time). I love Latyrx
but Gab, when seen at the same time, just seems to be on another level. I
can't understand anything he's saying, he's rhyming so fast. Shit maybe it's
not off the top at all. It doesn't matter. It sounds dope, the vocal
technique alone is incredible. The crowd is shitting. I can't remember how
it finished. I must have passed out from a skills overdose.

The last set is to be DJ Shadow doing some UNKLE interpretations. It's after
3 by now. I have work in the morning. I ask Tyrone if he wants to stay for
this. Yeah Fuck it, it's his car, we're staying.

Well I listen, adrenaline leaving the body, arms resting up on one of the
speakers at the front of the stage. I don't know. Some of this UNKLE shit
is decent. Some I don't need. I think he was remixing stuff on stage, cause
he played the Kool G Rap cut and it had more guitars than I remembered,
though I've only heard it once.

About 3:45 the show ends. We slowly make our way downstairs. Tyrone is
chatting up all these strangers and entering all these phone #s into his
celly's memory. We stop on the stairs to talk to some people he knows. This
little guy comes up. "Hey man." "What's up?" "Are you Gift of Gab?" "Naw,
we're just chilling." "Oh, ok, later." "Later'.What'd he ask, if I have
something to grab?" I'm laughing. "Naw man, he thought you were Gift of
Gab!" "Oh shit!" Another stranger comes up, taps Tyrone. "Nice show." This
shit is too much.

Security is trying to get rid of us. I walk ahead, Tyrone keeps lagging
behind. Everyone get out if you're not buying t-shirts! Come on Tyrone

I'm waiting and waiting. This guy won't stop talking to everybody. Dammit, I
gotta get up in 4 hours. I look back and he's talking to Gab. Damn'
I walk back towards him and get glared at by a security guard. "I'm just
getting my boy."
"Will, this is Blackalicious!" I shake Gab's hand. "What's up man. 3 guys
just came up to Tyrone here and thought he was you!" We all laugh. "Is the
album ever coming out?"
"It'll be out in March." I drop my head in mock exasperation.
"Anyway, great show tonight man. You killed it, you're on another level." I
detach myself from his nuts and we finally exit.

It's a peaceful ride home at 4 am. We put the tape on. E.C "Mating Ritual."
He gets clowned a lot but this song was dope. Saukrates "Father Time."
Where's his album.

I get home. My lunatic roommate is up studying. Financial math. Whatever.
I need to sleep but I can't. I just saw three of the illest mcs to ever set
it off. My favorite had been Lyrics Born, just for his incredible
innovations in both lyrics and flows. But I think, pending Nia's eventual
release, it may be Gift of gab now. Phenomenal. There's no more I can say.

Any Chicago heads that feel foolish for not going, good. You should. Best
hip- hop show I've seen this year for sure. That includes The Elements Tour,
Common Black Star and Mood, Rakim, Goodie Mob and Roots, Latyrx alone,
various local functions.

Go see Quannum. That, dear readers, is the moral of this story.

...nesta...