Big L

Yesterday marked the anniversary of Big L’s murder in Harlem in 1999. It’s been nine years since L was walking around this town. He was killed a couple days before my birthday and a couple months before his own 25th birthday. Big L is one of my favorite rappers, despite his limited discography. Few MCs can come with clever rhymes, a fantastically sharp wit, and sick flow – all in the same verse – and tell a great story while they’re at it. I could listen to The Big Picture or Lifestylez or D.I.T.C. all day, and I know “The Heist” by heart. Ah, my friend “The Heist.” What a fucking banger – a taut, relentless, chorus-free and guest-free embodiment of the core beats-and-rhymes aesthetic that most rappers either aspire to and fail or of which they aren’t even really aware. That track, in my opinion, says it all about Big L.

Sometimes it’s hard for me to write about a great rapper because I’m looking for that hook, that One Thing that separates them from everyone else. This guy has the best flow, this one guy really symbolized such-and-such, these cats is the realest, etc (although there’s a caveat to almost everything, and in this case, the caveat is that M.O.P is absolutely the realest dudes in the game. No, there's no period after the P).

The truth is, most of the time that One Thing isn’t there – it’s simply not shining in just one person. Sometimes you need to cobble together a few Things and claim that, based on these qualities, this guy or that guy was the greatest storyteller ever, or had the most flavorful flow ever, or whatever.

I can’t help but think Big L was special, though, and not because he happens to be dead (although I would be fooling myself if I claimed that the fact that he’s dead isn’t having an impact on my regard of him). Simply put, he epitomized hip-hop – hot beats, clever rhymes, freestyle skills, street cred, and flow. He was nice to the extreme – I can’t say that about a lot of rappers. Truth is, there are a few out there who personify the best and most essential elements of the genre in a similar fashion, but Big L just stands out, among rappers both living and dead. He was an MC, not a rapper - and like Jemini says, you gotta earn that title.

Believe me, I am completely aware of the fact that that I am passionate about this music to the point of being a bit immature about it. I get overwhelmed with pride when I look at the inlay photo on Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik or the back photo of In Our Lifetime and consider what these young dudes have done with their lives – here I am, filled with pride, and I never even met the guys. I claim that tracks like “Niggas Bleed” and “The Heist” are among the finest examples of storytelling in the history of storytelling. I want to track down Kweli and Field Mob and Jurassic and just thank them for writing with dimension and humanity, for just making me fucking happy on the worst day. I have daydreamed about running into Andre Benjamin in Fort Greene (did he ever even move there?) and thanking him for "Call of Da Wild" and "Synthesizer" and "Skew It" and "Crumblin' Erb" and "Growing Old" and a dozen other tracks until he tells me to get the fuck away from him.

Yeah. When it comes to my love of this thing of ours, I’m a dork. Straight up and down.

But I’m cool with that. I know I wear my heart on my sleeve, and as a result I can become an overemotional goofy mothafucka. I don’t really care, because I love all that shit. I love it. I feel no shame in welling up when I listen to Ghost’s “All I Got is You” or 40’s “The Story.” I love rapping to myself. I listen to guys like Dilla and Biggie and L and…I mean, I hate to go low-budg and bite from American Beauty, but I hear their music and I feel nothing but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life, simply because I’ve had these gems dropped on me. I feel so blessed to have been around when L was around, to hear his music, even if millions of others have heard it as well. I’m so thankful that guys like Big L left immortal pieces of themselves for me to enjoy over and over again.

He's so ahead of his time, you play his music in 0-6 - this nigga sound regular now
I heard that he was thugging, had a brother who was thugging
He was sitting on a stoop and he didn't see it coming
They crept up in front of ‘im and put the gun to ‘im and
Just rewinded ‘im

Fartcastle!

I could drink Newcastle all day long. A more eminently drinkable beer I have yet to discover. Sure, there are others that taste better and are more craftily crafted, and there are several others that top my list – Sierra Pale Ale Uber Alles! – but that Newcastle sure is drinkable. It’s like a 4-season sleeping bag, too – that lion does just fine in winter or summer. And for the dorkus malorkuses out there who would do such a thing, the label probably makes for a nice tattoo (I myself would probably go with a tat of the Sierra Barleywine label; if you’re going to get a stupid tattoo, it might as well have a touch of humor).

I also wonder whether there is some psychological component to my enjoyment of this particular brand in that the difference between the capped bottle and the empty one is strikingly different from a visual perspective. One minute it’s the brownest of the brown beers, to borrow slightly from Lionel Hutz, and the next minute it’s a clear glass lab beaker with a label. Stella, Sierra, etc…they don’t change much. A green or brown bottle is the same color, full or empty. And with other clear-bottled beers like Sol and Corona, you’re actually a little glad that you’re no longer holding a bottle that appears to be full of, and often tastes like, piss. With Newcastle, the difference is stark. That beer is gone.

The problem is that it’s also quite fartable. It’s like a post-college hookup – you want to spend all night with it, but then you discover in the morning that it wants to spend all day with you, tooting and rumbling around, and it ain’t as pretty or enticing as it was the night before. A price for everything.

I was going to buy one keg of Newcastle and one of Sierra Pale for my nuptials until I realized that I would to end up with either a ton of leftover beer or a tent full of completely hammered drunk-driving enthusiasts, many of whom would be relatives. Ice Cube can’t be havin’ that, G. So now I have to decide which keg to buy, and it’s more difficult than I would like. I suppose I’ll choose one, then get a case or two of the other one and perhaps some Stella for class and kick. Mmmm, Stella. Many a cold, cold Stella was servethed up to me in the Kong, resulting in weavy ducky downhill walks.

So what’s the point of this post? Nothing, dogg. Just talking about beer is all. Why, you want one? Come on, let’s go.

Funny and Random – yeah, a little meaningless tale about my life.

Funny thing happened to me this week. On Monday, I received an email from my friend G down in Miami Beach. G is a cool cat whom I have not seen in years – like, 17 years, ya heard? We have reconnected via email over the past year or so, and hopefully we’ll see each other in NY or F-L-A soon enough.

So G emailed “Call me tonight. Important” to both my work and gmail accounts. I was intrigued. I rang him, and it turns out that his mom asked him to help a Moscow journo (who speaks only Russian) interview Scott Storch. He recalled that I emailed him a video clip of Busta Rhymes hanging out with Storch and generally being the immature idiot that Busta is, and he remembered that my email mentioned Storch. He wanted the lowdown on the little dude since G’s not really in the music scene and didn’t know much about him. I filled him in, we had a long catch-up conversation, and that was that.

Last night I got home after dinner with a friend and and received a text message on my mobile: “I’m with Fat Joe…we’re going to interview him too…we don’t know what to ask…need a life line here!” I replied asking whether he could call me, he asked if I was on email, I started to get on and he rang me. Convo was funny: What do I call him? Fat Joe? Joe? Fat? Joe, I suggested – Just ask him. How much money does he have? Does he have more money than Storch? Hell yeah, dogg. Plenty more. A quick history of Fat Joe, some suggested questions, and a promise to email him some more questions with the quickness. According to G, we’ve got some time: “We’re still waiting for Storch to wake up, man. We’ve got at least a half an hour.” Ok, cool. Bear in mind that it’s around 8.30pm at this point, so Wee Man Scotty keeps slightly different hours than many of us. But, you know, good on him or whatever. Mazel tov and all that.

I get the gmail action going and start banging out questions. First directive from G was sort of “dumb it down, these kids are in Moscow” which didn’t sit right with me because most hip-hop fans outside the US know their shit better than the fans in the States, do more graf, still paint whole train cars, know all the lyrics, and generally have more respect for the history of the whole movement. US-based fans want to know where Jim Jones gets his balls waxed or something. I start with a mix of questions to both satisfy G’s request and honor my belief that the Russian readers are savvy. G calls me five minutes later to tell me that the reporter has assured him that, as I guessed, the fans in Moscow know their stuff, so I should feel free to dive a little deeper. No problem. Still have time? No, we’ve got maybe a few minutes, so hurry.

I’m typing like a madman now – what was it like to work with Pun and L, what would the landscape look like if they were still around, how has your style changed since Represent in 1993, questions about the latest record, what’s next for Terror Squad, how much time does he spend in Miami, etc etc. Just thinking of stuff as fast as I can. Meanwhile, G is sending me texts every two minutes: Send whatever you have rt now! And just a simple “nownow”. Funny. I hit send, he does the interview, calls me later to tell me it was all lovely. Mission accomplished.

So I got to ‘ask’ Fat Joe some questions and help out a homie in the process. Not bad for a piece of a night’s work. I’d love to see the final product, although I suppose G would have to translate that too.

To be honest, though, G should have just put me on speaker.

Lord Finesse Birthday Party – February 23, Irving Plaza

This was a funny night. Funny, funny night. This is not going to be in any way like the recent post about the Redman/Raekwon show, replete with a tight schedule, ill performances, and an epiphany about how much I love hip-hop. No, not this time.

This show sucked. Well, I can’t speak for the part of the show that we didn’t actually see; perhaps if we had stood there for another three hours watching shitty filler acts, getting hammered on cans of beer and shouting obscenities at Chuck D, we would have seen some awesome old-school hip-hop! However, we did not stand around for another three hours.

First, some background: I saw this show advertised on Ticketmaster. I was psyched, because I knew that any show billed as a “Lord Finesse Birthday Party” would have DITC and who knows how many old-school cats coming out of the woodwork. I headed down to Irving to avoid the Ticketfucker charges and asked the dude at the box office who would be performing. He rattled them off without enthusiasm, as if it was the fortieth time he’d been asked: “Lord Finesee, Grand Puba, Das Efx, DITC, Kid Capri, Chuck D hosting…”. SWEET! Given that two DITC legends – Big Pun and Big L – would not be there due to previous engagements with the afterlife, I was hoping that we’d even get treated to a Fat Joe appearance as well. It was going to be, as they say, off the hook.

So anyway, on the evening of the show, I head over to my man’s office around 6pm, and we could not be more psyched. We pick up his car (which I had the pleasure of driving back to Broo-killin’ – a fresh new sled with all the trimmings) and load it with Lord Finesse, DITC and even the first Fat Joe record. Bump all the way across town and down to the bridge, listening to Finesse…we’re loving it, right? A great NYC night lay ahead. Little did we know that this was going to be the only Lord Finesse we would hear all night.

We get to my joint, have some drinks and dinner, start getting nice on Pappy’s 15 and all that, burn it down in the backyard, and off we go, feeling great. We get to Irving Plaza and the doors aren’t even open yet – I guess “doors open at 9.30” really goddamn means that the doors will remain closed, no matter how goddamn cold it is outside, until 9 goddamn 30 PM. No problem. We roll around the corner to 119 and discover that, while it’s now called the Belmont Lounge or some shit and has a fancy-pants awning outside, it’s still the same old 119 inside – ratty booths, a ripe beer stank, and punk rock blaring out the speakers. They were playing a Dirty Rotten Imbeciles song I hadn’t heard since I was in tenth grade or so – that really took me back to the days of shows at the Cameo with Ean and Kyle and Django and shit like that. Yeah, I had a friend named Django. Was he named after Django Reinhardt? Fuck do you think, monkey?

We had a couple pints and headed back to the venue, and everyone is standing around being their color – black folks reppin’ and profilin’ and so on, white folks rapping along dorkily to “South Bronx” (yeah, we get it, you know the first BDP album, stop doing that), and the Sean Paul dudes swaggering around in their crappy rabbit fur coats that they refused to check because honestly, how can you show everyone that approximately 91 rabbits were killed to make your stupid coat if your stupid coat is in the coatroom? So R and I are posted at the bar, laughing, downing beer and water, and chatting vith Victor while we wait for something to happen onstage.

Finally some no-name act gets up there and we continue to dick around in the back, having a laugh. We move up into the mix when Das Efx does their thing, and it’s like…whatever. It was fine. I have to mention this one dude there with his Ft. Greene girlfriend – believe me, if you live or hang in Ft. Greene, you know what I mean by “Fort Greene girlfriend" – and he’s rapping along to every. Single. Song. Dude behind Ray is doing it, too. Who the hell learns every siggety diggety lyric on Das Efx records? Seriously. They were a novelty act, people! Damn! He gave a haircut to Sinead O’Connor, for God’s sake!

So then they wrap up, and we wait. And wait. And wait. The DJ spins some records. Chuck D comes out and starts his usual babble about society, and we head down to take a piss. Come back up and he’s still rattling on about how can a ten-year-old know what the inside of a strip club looks like? and how fucked up is that? and so on. I just laugh. Chuck, man, you haven’t changed in 20 years. He’s even pulling out lines from the live bits on the Nation of Millions album – you know those bits that they recorded at some show in London? Yeah, he’s pulling that shit out. “I like that for the people up top.” Word? You do? For the people up top? You mean the label reps and the Irving soundman? You know what, dude? Fuck off and bring out the next act. How’s that? For the people down low, right in front of the stage.

Finally, the next act comes out. Grand Puba? Nice and Smooth? Is it DITC? Can it be….Lord Finesse himself? No. It’s some other chumpaloids that the crowd proceeds to boo immediately. They make their way through their set with admirable courage and Chuck D again proceeds to think that he’s royalty enough that he can mete out these hip-hop legends to us once every three hours. I gotta tell you – I never thought, in my entire life, that I would find myself yelling “Shut the FUCK up!” to the legendary Chuck D. Never. But I’m sick of this goddamn shit where you wait half your life for the acts you came to see. Chuck D, you can “birthday party MC” your fuckin’ way offstage. The dude behind Ray was making all sorts of funny comments as well, which neither of us can recall because it’s 1am by now and we’re hammered, having tipped our first glass at 6.30.

At this point, it’s like, whatever. We go take another piss, head upstairs and to the back for another drink, and Grand Puba finally comes on. Go for yourself, dude. I’m not standing around until dawn for this shit. We were thoroughly, thoroughly disappointed. We rolled at 2am or so, having never seen the acts we both really wanted to see – DITC, Nice & Smooth, and Finesse.

Our highlight of the night? The three pieces of pizza we demolished back in Brooklyn. That’s right – I went right back into Floor Pizza, wearing my Floor Pizza Parka, and completely laid into three giant plain slices without floor-seasoning. I’m not joking – that was the best part of our night. I got Dax Efx and some Puba under my belt, I guess. And I had plenty of fun, despite the disappointments.

Ok, that is all.

Chucky

Floor pizza

The other night – and I use that term rather loosely, since it was a Monday in November – I went to a Knicks game with some buddies. While I have in the past taken the somewhat juvenile route in recounting drunken evenings and listed all the crap I put into my body, I will not do so this time. I am attempting a less juvenile approach to my tales of rageosity, indiscretion, and periodic humiliation. As you will soon read, the story itself takes care of that.

Anyway, we first went to dinner at El Quixote, a fun joint in Chelsea that serves up piles of tasty grub and sangria, then walked up 7th Ave to the game. The Knicks played the Rockets. Tracy McGrady. Dikembe. Freakin’ Yao, dude. When your home team sucks the root, you have to try to make it to games in which they play teams with cats you’re psyched to see – not that I had any control over which game I saw, but still, I was psyched. This was also the game during which little 5’9” Nate Robinson rejected Yao (at 7’6”) in a major way, leaving Yao clutching his face as much in shame as in pain.

Many drinks were consumed at dinner and at the game; evidence of this fact, without going into specific numbers, includes my knocking a contact lens out of my buddy’s eye (some sort of mislaid high-five attempt, I believe) and ripping a one-hitter of KB in the bathroom of the Garden. For the record, I have never done that. Never. I have always considered it completely stupid and nuts to pull something like that, and I still do – it was just that twenty-second period when I actually did it that my opinion briefly shifted to the, uh, well, the opposite. Since I mess with that stuff basically never these days, I ended up completely, comically blazini. I was interplanetary.

So after the game, we head back down to Chelsea where these guys work (and where one of them had parked his car) and proceed to down a few more drinks. By now I’m slurring and apologizing for the verbal slurry that’s coming out of my mouth, and it’s time to go. Bid farewell to friends newfound and old and get on the L. I’m noticing that some of the hipster douches standing near me are stealing looks at me, and I conclude that I’m probably just stinking of alcohol or seriously red/bleary/insane-eyed. I also conclude that it would be rather delightful to grab a slice of pizza when I arrive in Brooklyn.

I get off the train, head to the slice joint, and order up a plain slice. Now, I have been somewhat adverse to this place for a long time, and I never really knew why. I’m not especially xenophobic, I used to go there quite often back in, I don’t know, 1994 or something….it’s weird, but I always had this inexplicable bad feeling about the place. Like something bad would happen to me in there.

My slice came up, I paid, and as I went to grab the paper plate, the slice just jumped off the plate. I was having coordination problems, ok? Yeah, so the slice just jumped away from me and landed perfectly flat on the floor, face up. Right in front of the counter, where three or four hundred pairs of shoes, boots and, this being hipster town, stupid heels and crap had probably trod that day. The white tile was marbleized all blackish from sneaker prints and shit like that.

In a moment of drunken panic and embarrassment, and to a small chorus of “Ohhhh!”s from people who saw the slice get away from me, I chose not to think AT ALL and, in one swift motion, bent down and deftly (yeah, now I’m being deft, now that I’m picking the slice off the floor) slid the pizza back onto the plate. We’re talking two seconds, instant reaction shit here. I stood, looked right at a dude sitting at the table closest to me (they were all aghast), and said, “Watch me walk out with it, yeaaaah!” and laughed. Laughed like they were the idiots, you know? Oh man, I'm laughing about that moment right now.

As I walked out of the joint, I heard a woman say, “Is he going to eat that?” Hell yeah, monkey, I am. Get your own floor pizza. I giggled my way down the street, completely embarrassed but too shitfaced to find it anything but hilarious. I sat down on the steps of my building, finishing the slice and still laughing out loud about the episode. Went in and told my wifey, who loves me so much, dig -- she found the tale pretty funny herself and assuaged my fears that I would die of shoe-AIDS or something in a few days. Shoetulism. Sho-e.coli.

The next morning, I felt just absolutely ashamed of myself – the massive hangover and dry heaves also did wonders for my self-esteem, let me tell you. Almost 36 years old, married, six figures, blah blah, and I’m still getting hammered and eating pizza off the goddamn floor. I vowed never to wear my red parka again on Bedford Ave and to start wearing contact lenses, both in an effort to hide my identity. That lasted, like, zero days. I think I rocked that parka to work seven hours later, now that I think about it. In fact, when I walk past the pizza joint nowadays, I actually stroke the parka, pop the collar and shoot the cuffs, and grin right into the window of the place.

That floor pizza was pretty good.

Rock the Bells Tour – B.B. King’s, November 28, 2006

Here are my text message notes from the Rock the Bells show last week, typed while dead center in the middle of the most weed-smokinest crowd I have ever experienced at B.B. King’s:

Supernat- 3words,3mcs,obstaclecourse-bluntphoneipodetc. Dj kool gogo my mike sound nice… Rae-sick bud smels-crazy ice-special people in the bldg…us! Jeru in the house… Red-breathe in out Thanj u ny x2! White gisl onstage.. daggdnessintogetdirty!

Ok, now I shall decipher for you. First of all, let me just say that a hip-hop show is so energizing for me. I crashed at like 1am, could not get to sleep until about 2 because I was still so amped, and I popped out of bed at 7.00 and just rocked my way into work. I felt fuckin’ great. I crashed in the afternoon, but for most of the day it was full speed ahead. Life is good. Hip hop in New York is good. What’s that Mix Master Mike song? “NY is Good.”

Anyway, I was dog-tired from a couple of 7am arrivals Monday and Tuesday morning, but I thought I would continue the long hip-hop tradition of just not giving a fuck and decided to head up there. Solo, too. Worked out fine, actually, because I was able to push my way up front without worrying about having space for me and my homies or whatever. I just had to worry about me.

After a quick nap and some grub followed by a championlike pounding of a Black Sparks, I rode up there and headed in. Quick ticket and coat check, then straight to the bar to pound as many Jack and gingers as possible (the number was four. I wasn’t going back up to the bar once I got down in the mix). While posted at the bar like a star, listening to the standards that always get the B.B.’s crowd hyped (think Pete and CL’s “They Reminisce Over You”), Smif N Wessun kicked off their set. Crowd loved it, and they were tight. Fellow Boot Camp homies Sean Price and Buckshot joined them as well, and they did a bunch of the hits. Tek jumped on Sean P’s back for a while, which was funny; later on he told the crowd, “Last night I smoked weed for the first time in about five years, and I threw up, like, twice and shit.” He looked awesome with that crazy beard and tats and all that. Good set, nothing too amazing, but they definitely delivered. I was happy.

I ran to the can where there was a bit of a line – I think hip-hop shows are one of the few events on the planet where the respective lines for the men’s and women’s bathrooms are reversed in length – and if you have ever been to a B.B.’s show, you are not gonna believe this next shit I tell you: Supernatural had already come on before I got back out of there. I shit you not. No fucking waiting 40 minutes, listening to the standards. He was out there in like two seconds. Sweet-ass sweet.

Sadly, Supernat only did four tracks or so, which is perhaps my only complaint about the show. He could have used some more shine. He did one studio track called “Not that Way,” I think, and three freestyles. One was “Three Words” whereby he took three words that the audience suggested and rhymed around them, and the second one was called “Three MCs” in which he imitated, in succession as well as in lyrical and vocal style, Slick Rick, Busta Rhymes, and Biggie. Crowd loved that. He did a back-and-forth with himself whereby he would rap in his own voice, asking Big questions, then go into Biggie’s voice and respond. And “Biggie” rapped about chilling with Scott La Rock and Big Pun – nice. Shout out to the BX dead homies.

The third freestyle was the illest. He asked everyone to pull something out of their pockets and hold it in the air. He called it an “obstacle course” and told us he planned to rhyme about each thing he saw. And sho nuff, he did, and he flowed like water. Ipods, cash, digi cameras, a Yankees cap, a Dutch Master, a bottle of Henny, all this stuff. I’m sure he’s done this at other shows, but I had never seen the guy before, so I was totally into it. And no, I can’t really remember any killer couplets, but believe me, they were hot. Fun fact: Supernatural just set a world record for the longest continuous freestyle: 9 hours and 15 minutes. Sick. I suppose there are some breaks allowed for sipping water and peeing and such, unless he used an IV and a diaper. I hope he didn’t do that.

Now, his DJ was DJ Kool, who looked about 50 years old, and he was definitely old-school and a cool cat. After Supernat’s set, he played a bunch of hits, but not the usual Pete Rock-Cypress Hill-Naughty By Nature stuff you always hear. He was getting into some “South Bronx”, “Night of the Living Baseheads,” “The Nigga You Love To Hate,” etc…plus a small smattering of the usual, but mostly relatively rare cuts. Being from DC, he also gave folks a little lesson in go-go music, mixing up the “my mike sounds nice” sample with some go-go to show how similar hip-hop and go-go are. And not just because of the hyphens.

Anyway, I think he was a little over the young dudes’ heads with the go-go lesson, but that’s ok. I was feeling him. He did his thing for about 15 minutes while Raekwon’s DJ set up – not that long in B.B.’s time – and then Rae came out and set the crowd off. Freakin’ like totally off, dude, very tubular and gnarly.

Seriously, though, he was great. Lots of Wu-bangers, of course, certainly a majority; I liked the fact that he or his side man would rap the other Clan members’ verses instead of just playing, and rapping, the little bits of songs that were Raekwon’s. For example, on “Protect Ya Neck,” he did Deck’s verse, then his, then Method Man’s, and since I looooove Meth’s verse on that track, I was a happy man. Oh yeah, now that I think about it, he did U-God’s bit up to the Soooooooooo!

Some ODB tribute action followed, and we got treated to a nice scoop of “Ice Cream” as well. He ended with, no surprise here, “Incarcerated Scarfaces.” Hot set.

I also don’t usually notice this or care much about it, but Rae had a pretty sweet iced-out chain as well. It was the first time in my life that I thought to myself, you know, I wish I had 60 grand lying around for a sweet icy chain and little kick-ass rectangular medallion like that. What can I say, the shit looked nice. Supernatural’s medallion was a fucking huge chunk of amber. Baseball-sized. That was kind of cool too.

Oh yeah, and Rae shit on the new Hova album. Nice. The Pitchfork review of Kingdom Come tears Jay a new asshole; I suppose that, when you’re that successful, you could use a spare bunghole anyway. Perhaps Hova is grateful.

The “special people in the building” part of my hasty text memo has to do with the fact that Rae said, “there are some special people in the building tonight…some real special people in the building. You know who’s here? YOU guys. All y’all mothafuckas who made me, who made Wu-Tang the shit it is.” That was nice. I just thought I’d mention it. You know how that goes.

At some point in this post, I have to address the weed issue, and now is as good a time as any. This was by far the weediest rap show I have ever attended. The weed was everywhere. Stank like five different ways, too – there was some seriously kind bud in the house. I’m not fucking with that stuff these days, but I probably got a bit of a contact from it all. “Security shinin’ flashlights like where the weed at.” Hey, if Gza puts it so succinctly, I might as well just use it, right? This cat next to me was lit up and angry that the guy was trying to actually do his job, so he was throwing quarters at the dude. Real classy type. Whatever, go for yourself, buddy. Regale your homies at the rim shop tomorrow. On the real, though, it was stankolicious. Not surprising given the lineup, of course. People were even smoking onstage which, if my KB-addled memory serves me, is a real rarity.

Ok, so back to the show. We waited a bit for Redman and he just blasted his way onto the stage wearing the kind of gear I respect – a Carhartt watch cap, black down vest, a tour t-shirt like they were selling upstairs, and no bling whatsoever. Straight Redman shit. And boy, did I get treated to the dopeness I wanted to hear – tracks from Whut? Thee Album, Muddy Waters, Doc’s Da Name, Blackout, Malpractice, the whole nine. He went straight from “Da Goodness” into “Let’s Get Dirty” and damn, I was happy I decided to go to the show! Freakin’ ”Da Rockwilder” from Blackout, including Meth’s first verse, “I’ll Bee That”, which was introduced with a rousing, enthusiastic call-and response session of “Fuck you, Redman!”…damn, I just realized he even did a little bit of Erick Sermon’s “React” in which he’s got a verse. Sweeeeet. Ah, it was great. Just great. So fun to look up at Red and see that he was having such a great time, jumping around and flinging water into the crowd and all that. He was all, “thank YOU….no, no, thank YOU…” in his silly style, all grinny and shit.

The weed smell did not go away.

Anyway, I rolled around 11.55pm when it seemed like they were wrapping up, doing “Rapper’s Delight” and stuff. I had checked my coat and didn’t want to spend 40 minutes waiting for that shit. Hope I didn’t miss “I Don’t Kare” or whatever. I got what I came for.

Which brings me to my closing: why I went to that show in the first place, despite my fatigue and the prospect of an early rise. Hip-hop. The hebbe to the hebbe to the hip hip hop and you don’t stop rocking. H.I.P.H.O.P. Damn, I love the shit. I love it. I love seeing the old-timers say all the words to “Jimmy.” I love seeing the 4’8” Malaysian chick throwing her hands up to Smif n’ Wessun. I love the really fat white dude to my right saying ALL the words to the Redman tracks, the smooth Asian cats sneaking 8-second pulls off the blunts, the diesel brothers who don’t do corny shit like clap their hands or put their lighters in the air for ODB, but just stand there, still in their leathers even though it’s 85 degrees inside. The fat beats, the side men, the skeezy white girl smoking onstage with her 70s tints hiding her eyes, the head-bouncing and the smoke and the freestyles all over the place. I mean, I fell in love with Hong Kong and all that, and NYC is a mad expensive place to make a life, but sometimes, when I’m right there in the mix, jumping up and down and smiling from ear to ear despite my knee brace and my sore hamstrings and sore neck and my 36th birthday around the corner and my 6am alarm waiting for me, I just think to myself, man, I’m never leaving New York.

Chucky

Soft Batch NYPD?

I’m just going to keep this one short. Are some NYPD officers soft like butter? Seems like, every time it appears that they or one of their boys are in the slightest bit of trouble, they go full clip. They just fucking empty on a motherfucker, and a lot of the time (Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell), the dude is unarmed. So that’s my question for the day. Are some NYPD cops scaredy-cat pussbags?

“Oh, I thought he was reaching for a gun. So I just lit the fucker up like the Fourth of July. And, you know, I carry the Glock, and I can put like 17 or 18 rounds in the thing, so I figure, why not throw all 18 out there? I mean, I have an extra clip or two, which is good when I want to put like 35 or 40 at the dude. Oh, wait, he was reaching for his wallet? Word? My bad. I was just looking out for my fellow officers is all. That’s why I fired my weapon. Thirty. Fucking. Times.”