Without deliberately giving out the coordinates to my secret lair, I am conveniently located within blocks of the Yoshi’s jazz club on Fillmore St.
Fillmore St. bleeds music from the soul. I don’t think it has the same street cred as say Chicago, but the feelings and passions are pretty much the same.
Coming into the show, I had lost faith in the Blackstar camp mostly through seeing two bad performances from the Mighty Mos Def. I would say as far as star power is concerned, Mos should rank higher then his brethren brothers Kweli and Hi-Tek. I mean the guy did after all do a movie with Marky-Mark and Charlize Theron in Italian Job….but after seeing Kweli’s performance with Idle Warship, I think he just bumped him off the pedestal.
Kweli is good for a couple of reason. One of the most important things in a live performance is creating a relationship with your audience, even within only a 2 hour time span. Kweli took control of the show but made sure it wasn’t a straight shot experience. I want to say him talking about some dude shitting on his performance on Twitter was only something that we saw, but maybe I could be wrong.
It also helps that you have a pretty good range of songs to get yo damn hands up. I have a pretty hard gripe on hip-hop shows for this very reason. Some of my favorite hip-hop songs have been disasters live on stage due to the song’s impact not being necessarily appropriate for a live audience. Not to attacking Mos Def again but Umi Say is a pretty boring song to hear live, but on the Bart train to work it can be kind of uplifting to hear.
And throw me a late pass on Res and Graph Nobel. I never really heard of these chicks but I hope Idle Warship produces more star power for the two. Their voices don’t resonate but they compliment each other as a trio doubling up as MCees and singers. Think Fergie but with more talent and a cuter face.
Good to know that some of the rappers that I listened to in college are still doing there thing in this industry. Overall the show was good and most important, it didn’t put a dent in my pocket.
September 22, 2009 at 11:09 am |
Looked like an awesome show. I know a friend who was there too. He said Kweli absolutely killed it.
September 23, 2009 at 2:41 am |
Shit I’ve listened to to Idle Warship for a minute…jealous you got to see ‘em live!
September 24, 2009 at 5:53 pm |
I too was hesitant to go to the Idle Warship show. I saw Black Star at Rock the Bells a couple years back and thought their performance sucked. I must say, Talib, Res, Graph Nobel, and the rest of the Idle Warship band killed it! BTW, great photos and video footage.