Last Saturday, with an incredible amount of anticipation, I made my way to City Hall to see a show I felt incredibly lucky to have in my town. It was a show that boasted a legendary lineup; a veteran DJ and two national names that have been highly influential to the underground hip-hop scene. It started off like I expected, and as the show went on the crowd grew hungrier and my excitement continued to build, but somewhere along the way expectations and reality did not meet. In fact, they veered off in opposite directions like two magnets of the same polarity. I'm not exactly sure why it happened or if it was an anomaly, but I will recount what I saw happen.
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| DJ Mu$a |
The show began with an opening set from veteran local DJ Mu$a. When he took the stage, he immediately found a groove and began stringing together a crowd pleasing mix that drew the audience to the dance floor. DJ Mu$a is very versatile, and on this night he chose to keep a steady mix of experimental/atmospheric beats and hip-hop to ready the crowd as they filtered into the venue. There was a long line of people waiting to get inside the show that night, so the relaxed demeanor of DJ Mu$a's early set kept the peace and readied everyone's ears until the majority of the crowd made it inside.
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| DJ Mu$a |
Once the line to get inside died down and the majority of concertgoers were on the dance floor, DJ Mu$a began to pick up the intensity. DJ Mu$a took the crowd from having a few hands in the air and a bit gentle head-nodding to complete body movement but mixing in harder hip-hop beats. Towards the end of his set, he went on a J Dilla rampage, mixing together beats from the late renowned hip-hop producer to the crowd's satisfaction. It definitely got the crowd thinking of what was to come, as they were there to witness another producer likely drop his beats in a similar fashion. I liked DJ Mu$a's mixing style, on this particular night he chose a more straightforward approach than the intricacies I heard on some of his mixtapes, but it was exactly what the crowd was looking for and needed.
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| J. Rocc |
The next set came from J. Rocc, a veteran turntabilist and DJ that has been at his craft for about two decades. J. Rocc took a different approach than the set before him, J. Rocc's set was high-energy from the get go and never really let up until his time was done - and it really amped up the crowd. J. Rocc demonstrated the skill set of an expert DJ and turntabilist. He kept the intensity high by dropping classic break after classic break quickly, and diligently. He combined old reggae, funk, jazz and soul - many old songs that have been sampled into hip-hop songs - with hip-hop essentials, pretty much taking the entire venue to school with a comprehensive mix.
He put together his mix seamlessly, doing beat mixing, cutting, scratching, and beat juggling do give his own personal touch to the set. The crowd was absolutely hooked to what J. Rocc was doing, as he was skillfully putting together a best of hip-hop mixtape, including classics from Biz Markie, Outkast, A Tribe Called Quest, Nas and many, many more live in front of the audience's eyes. His set went for quite some time, nearly ninety minutes, and although he was mixing hot fire, people started to hunger even more for the headlining set and began to grow a little impatient.
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| J. Rocc |
J. Rocc was doing well, but for some reason it seemed like he was playing longer than he should - stalling if you will - and the audience began to pick up on that and grow antsy. It didn't help that for the latter half of J. Rocc's set, Madlib stood by on stage teasingly as if he could go on at any moment. J. Rocc's set, especially in retrospect, was amazing and probably exactly what concertgoers expected to hear at the show. J. Rocc definitely lived up to his reputation as a skilled tunrtabilist DJ, but people wanted a set from the legend they came to see.
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| Madlib |
Suddenly and strangely, J. Rocc's set abruptly ended as if his equipment malfunctioned, and he announced to the crowd, "That's my cue. Are you ready for Madlib?". The crowd was more than ready, as evidenced by the eruption of cheers from the audience as Madlib approached the decks. At first, everything seemed to be going smoothly. Madlib dropped one of his characteristically styled beats with a rap track over it for about a minute, but then, instead of a transition to something else, there was an abrupt stop and some confusion on stage. A City Hall staff member was quickly up on stage tinkering with the mixer to make sure Madlib's fader was set to reverse like he wanted.
Another song began to play as they figured out the problem, and then it seemed like everything was ready to go. Madlib dropped another beat but just let it ride as he mumbled something incomprehensible over the microphone. After about a minute of that, the music would stutter in and out as Madlib randomly toggled the volume up and down by flipping the fader on his mixer - but it wasn't really rhythmically or in any fashion that sounded good or made any sense. Then, instead of mixing into another song or beat, the music would just stop, hands would shuffle on stage, and someone in Madlib's crew would break the silence by trying to hype up the crowd.
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| Madlib |
Now don't get me wrong, I have incredible respect for Madlib. The music he's produced over the past two decades has been groundbreaking. His unique style of production has inspired and supported a staggering list of underground hip-hop artists over the years. His constant search for new sound has lead him to continually push the boundaries of what hip-hop is and what it can be. His albums, beat tapes and mixtapes are always solid, no matter how exploratory he can get with his influences of sound. But what Madlib was doing on stage this particular night was not at all what I expected and nothing that was really representative of the Madlib sound.
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| Madlib |
Madlib's hype men would break the period silence with random ramblings to try to incite excitement from the now confused crowd. The problem was, the crowd needed more than songs that were not mixed together. The crowd needed more than random volume fader flipping. The crowd needed more than incomprehensible ramblings. The crowd needed more than nonsensical loops and stop-starts. The crowd needed Madlib to do more than come out on stage, randomly insert CDs, and string together the absolute opposite of a mixed set. It was like trying to read a newspaper that was run through a confetti cut paper shredder - I'm sure there was good content in there, but you could only get small pieces and snippets at a time, and never enough to put anything cohesive together.
The crowd tried to bear the set as much as they could, but as it lingered on and never improved, there was a steady flow of people to the exit doors. Within about a half hour into his set, Madlib had already cleared a substantial portion of the room, and by the end of the night, there were probably fewer than fifty people there in a place that at one point could have had close to a thousand. I stayed hoping that eventually what was happening would change into something more along the lines of what I expected, but it never happened.
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| Madlib |
I was expecting at the very least a fluid DJ set mixing together Madlib's beats, originals and remixes. Before the show, I had hoped Madlib would work on an MPC/sample controller or perhaps keyboards while J. Rocc laid down cuts and scratches on the turntables. He didn't exhibit any of the multi-instrumentalism he is known for with projects like Yesterday's New Quintet. He didn't exhibit any of his sample mastery that he shows through his work as Beat Konducta. He didn't really exhibit anything beyond what a complete novice behind turntables and a mixer could do. In fact, at one point there was an iPhone plugged into the mixer while J. Rocc scrolled through beats. Beats would play off seemingly at random while Madlib just turn the volume on and off.
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| Madlib |
I've heard about Madlib shows before, but I never heard anything described like what I saw. Was this a one time deal? I don't know. Is this what the Medicine Show Live is all about? I hope not. Was there something preventing Madlib from being himself that night? Maybe. Was it some sort of experimental approach I just don't understand? That could be it, but then everybody that left probably didn't understand it either. Maybe it was the altitude. Maybe it was the copious amounts of wine.
Whatever the excuses were, the fact that it was so haphazard leads me to believe the show just wasn't taken seriously. By the end, I couldn't help but feel I took part in some twisted social experiment - like some variation of the Emperor's New Clothes, as if Emperor Madlib was naked on stage and he wanted to see how many people would pretend to see otherwise based on the legend. I hope that wasn't the case, but that thought did cross my mind as the night dragged on. If what I described sounds appealing to you, you may want to check out a Madlib show, although I can't say that it is what he always does. I still have a lot of respect for Madlib - as a producer. Beyond that, I can't say for certain, but based on the head-scratching performance I saw with the rare chance I got to see him live, I think I'll just stick to his records.
See more pictures from this show in
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