I’ve been fairly vocal in complaining about shitty, boring rap shows I’ve attended in the past. While the infamous Ultramagnetic show of 2013 rates as perhaps the most soul-crushing disappointment of my adult life, picking the best one I’ve attended is a little trickier. It would have to be a toss-up between Public Enemy‘s 1989 Melbourne show – where Flavor Flav was driven onto the stage in ambulance before he leaped off a giant speaker stack while me and my friends stood with our arms crossed in the appropriate b-boy stance while the rest of the crowd danced around like rabid meerkats; Lord Finesse and the late DJ Roc Raida in 2006 – simple yet effective; or Big Daddy Kane live in Herbert Von Park in Brooklyn, New York in 2013, where he tore up the stage and even managed to bust out some synchronized steps with his dancers.
What are your best and worst live rap show experiences?
The best shows : Without a doubt I would say Ice-t & The Rhyme Syndicate Posse(Darlene was here !!!) and Krs-One & Boogie Down Productions in the late 80’s: It’s a tie.
The worst shows : None ’cause in the late 80’s and early 90’s everything was fresh.
J.Purist
On my 21st birthday in mid 1993 Funkdoobiest, Cypress Hill and House of Pain came to Nottingham on a Soul Assassins tour. Funkdoobiest went on first and tore the fucking roof off. Cypress Hill followed and also gave an energetic and fluid show. Both of the crews had the crowd eating out of their hands. House of Pain weren’t so fortunate going on as headliners. Their records kept jumping due to stylus problems. Everlast and Danny Boy had a few hissy fits with the front row and eventually stormed offstage after failing to perform “Who’s the Man?”. So a simultaneously best and worst show from when the Soul Assassins were in their prime.
Best: Boot Camp Click, Wu Tang, Pete Rock & CL Smooth, Onyx, Roc Marc & Black Milk
Worst: Jim Jones, MOP, and Kool G Rap (wasn’t his fault though the crowd just sucked Bostons notorious for having shitty crowds)
Best Show? Edan. The guy is off the fucking scale. Everytime.
Worst show. I have wiped’em.
During “Organix”, the Square Roots were the headliner at the Troc in Philly. On the bill were Divine Beings, Mad Kap and the Pharcyde. Best show I’ve seen.
The worst show was one that didn’t happen.. It was at Mahorn’s in Jersey, mid-90’s, and the Beatnuts were set to perform. They got on stage and somehow heated words were exchanged between them and the host, xZulu(homie that got beatdown by Henchmen’s squad). He told the ‘Nut’s to “beat it with that wack ass single”.. I heard Ju in the parking lot and son was livid to say the least. He said “don’t nobody tell me my shit is wack!!” A few weeks later, they released “Props over here”…
worst: bahamadia. only femae mc i’ve ever seen live.fuckin diva complained we smoked blunts in the front row.we left.
best: redman & das efx first album tour 91
tim dog & hijack 92 prime
rugged man 04 rippin shit
kool keith 06 low expectations and the show was epic.staright spittin throwin porn and bras
@Ben Jones
I’m from Boston and saw M.O.P, I almost lost my mind the show was so hype, how do you not have a great time at a M.O.P (assuming you didn’t get mashed out)?
Best: KRS-One @ City Hall Plaza (w/b-boy team), B-Real dolo (Cypress Hill will be here next month, so hyped), Cannibal Ox/EL-P/Mr. Lif/Camu Tao (back in 2001, they debuted a demo versions of Iron Galaxy, Stepfather Factory, Hold The Floor, retard energy)
Worst: Esoteric (his back was broke or something, he stood at the edge of the stage in a robe and pointed at the crowd all night, an off night for him), Big Daddy Kane (City Hall Plaza, he was out of shape at the time, low energy could barely perform Warm It Up or Raw, redeemed himself with Slick Rick years later)…the rest have been forgotton.
At a festival in London in 1998 I saw Kool Keith and Scaramanga do a set. Festivals don’t attract many Hip Hop fans so Keith had to explain to the crowd who he was and that he was sampled on current hit Smack My Bitch Up by The Prodigy. Keith and Scara did a great show nonetheless, I was impressed by Scara wearing an Arsenal FC shirt and a really phat gold rope. Sorry for the rambling reminisce – I’m unemployed!
Best: I’d still have to say…The Roots’ first Bay Area show, back in 94 (or was it 95?), at Bimbo’s. Insanely fun.
Close second might have been KRS-One at Maritime Hall, same era though I’m not as sure if it was because that show was objectively great as it was that KRS was at the height of his influence at that point. I remember that when the first chords of “The Bridge is Over” began to drop, the crowd lost its mind and if you’ve ever been at Maritime Hall when you have hundreds of people jumping up and down in unison, it’s like an earthquake was rumbling through.
Best: LL, KRS, Digable Planets, Fat Joe & MOP. All ripped the shows with ease.
WORSE, De La Soul, Nas & Rakim. No energy with their shit. Just rappin’!!
Fortunately practically everyone toured Holland so I’ve seen a LOT. A few that come to mind:
– Jurassic 5 (seen them a few times, brilliant everyime)
– KRS-One (same story)
– The Roots: 1994-2000. After that they still made a few excellent records but their shows became unbearable. Instead of hiphop 101 in which they played tidbits of hiphop classics they have been rocking Black Betty and Sweet Child O’ Mine for 15 years now. Ugh…
– Lord Finesse: saw him a few times but his show with Roc Raida on the Fat Beats Amsterdam 1 year anniversary was absolutely ace.
– Big Daddy Kane (see Jurassic 5)
– Gang Starr: saw them about 5 times. The one with Jeru and Lil’Dap right after the release of Daily Operation and before Come Clean was really dope and raw. The rest was great everytime.
– The Arsonists on a Monday Night in Rotterdam for about 40 people. Despite the wack circumstances they were amazing. Also saw them on the Fat Beats 2nd year anniversary.
– Invisbl Skratch Piklz on Fresh ’97. Absurdly dope!
– O.C. with special guest Big L (unannounced, he ran out on stage to the opening sounds of Devil’s Son. People lost their damn minds!)
– Dilated Peoples: always very, very solid. Can’t pick a best performance out of the 7 or so I’ve seen.
Best- Summer 1988 Run’s House Tour- Providence, RI
Run-DMC, Public Enemy, Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince all at the height of their careers! CLASSIC!
Worst- Das Efx…early 90s..some club in Providence…I think they did 2 songs and left the stage…HORRIBLE!
Best – NWA – 1989 – Birmingham hummingbird supported by above the law, demon boys, London posse – how good was that!
Stetasonic & epmd 88/89 at same venue
Nas – illmatic 20th anniversary Birmingham this year
Worst – jungle brothers – Glastonbury 97 – painful
Jay-z – 2002 blueprint tour – Birmingham nia – massive arena, terrible sound quality, zero stage presence.
Best: De La Soul at the City In The Park festival in Manchester, summer ’91, they’d recently released ‘De La Soul Is Dead’, hot summer’s day, the crowd, whilst not really a Hip Hop crowd were up for it, De La were on it.
I remember they came out on rollerskates for ‘Saturdays’ and Trugoy absolutely soaked some kid in the front row for somehow pissing him off.
They performed tracks from both LPs (3ft high was a huge record in Mcr) & me and my fellow, stoned, 16 year old mates had a great time singing & rapping along whilst also trying to stifle the giggles we’d got from watching a huge bear of a man who was next to us doing his ‘stiff white dad’ dance (poor bastard, looking back now we probably ruined his whole festival).
Best is a tie between LONS and ATCQ at bk hiphop fest a coupla years back, the entire gang Starr foundation in 94 and the LOTUG/Funkdoobiest/Cypress show same year
Pretty much every beasties, PE, DE LA, ice cube show I’ve seen is up there
Worst, Jay Elect and MoS def in NYC around 08. Both just seemed really unprepared
@Enig Mue to be fair I seen MOP twice the first time was actually pretty good but the second they must of drank way to much before cause they barley performed any full songs and lil fame fucked up his leg or something cause he had a cane (oh yeah Termanology performed a song nuff said fuck that guy)
Best: Redman, 2004, 2be club, Berlin. Backed by DJ Dice he gave us nothing but classics. In the middle of the set he announced his 45-year-old uncle to enter the stage. His uncle (really?) appeared to be DJ Kool! Let me clear my throat!!! We… went… bonkers! Redman kept that energy level until the end including jumping into the crowd off of a 3 meter speaker box. Dope!
Worst: Redman & Method Man, 2009, some club, Berlin. Meth complained about the crowd all the time. They reminded us that “How High – The Movie Pt. II” will be in the cinemas soon (as Red already did in 2004). I had to leave early…
Honorable mentions: The Pharcyde (original line-up performing “The Bizarre Ride…” including the skits + Runnin’ & She said)2013, Funkdoobiest 2011, Torae & Guilty Simpson 2013, Black Milk 2014, DOOM & E.M.C. 2014.
Best: raising hell tour, beasties and jungle brothers woth Red Alert. However best of the lot was Jeru Da Damaja playing in my local pub a couple of years ago! Surreal but superb
I was at that kool keith show in 06, plastic people. He started taking the piss out of my mate and gave him a porno mag, gave thongs to the girls at the front, your right lowkey but very good performance.
Worst was the ditc no show in camden, epmd with just parish, executioners because of the sound man.
Best would be lord finesse in 04 camden again, beatnuts, heltah skeltah black moon and smif n wessun at the forum in london
Best: Tied between 1985 The Original Fresh Fest (Nassau Coliseum) Flash/Furious, Fat Boys, UTFO, Whodini, Run-DMC
Hot 97 1999 Summer Jam (Giants Stadium) Violators (Busta, Q-Tip, Missy), Red & Meth, Ca$h Money, Ja-Rule Nas, DMX & Ruff Ryders (The Lox, Eve, etc) Jay-Z & Rocafella (Bleek, Beanie, etc)
Worst: Hot 97 2014 Summer Jam….When Nas & 50 Cent are co-headliners, and are forced to merge their sets, and neither closes the show in front of a mainly NY crowd…..Hip Hop Is Dead.
I’d also include the Soundbombing 2 show (Shabaam Saadeeq, Pharoahe Monch, Mos Def, Talib Kweli/Hi-Tek, etc) as a great experience. I took my girlfriend at the time who wasn’t even a Hip Hop fan, and she enjoyed the show. Except for when RA The Rugged Man decided to jump around crazy and strip on stage like he was high on dust. She was like WTF.
BEST: ODB, The COUP (Always), Redman, Roots (Things Fall Apart Tour), Mos Def/Jay Electronica (Ecstatic Tour), Mos/Talib-BLACK STAR (2012 or 2013/? sooo high that night and I got 1st date laid!)….Pharoahe (W.A.R Tour) Run The Jewels/RATKING (RTJ 2 Tour), Freddie Gibbs/Madlib (Pinata Tour)and PE-Bro J(X-Clan)-Monie Love-Schooly D (HipHopGodz Tour)
WORST/Only by Default: Brand Nubian w/out Puba…..Yo,it was like only 30 people inside the venue for the entire show….Sad! (But Sadat/Jamar kept rockin and finished the set so they gets respect!)
Awe shit! …. GangStarr (Ownerz Tour…nothing but butta hits!!, The Arsonists (played at a punk bar mid winter…got shit LIT!!) EL P (I’ll Sleep/Dead Tour) and JEAN Mufuckin GRAE/Mr. Len (Cookies & Comas Tour) = BEST Pt.2
I’ve seen Atmosphere play 5/6 times, each of those times has been better than any rap show I’ve seen by any other artist.
Best : Edan, KRS-1, De La Soul, Ghostface, Meth & Red
Worst : DOOM. Great on wax, boring live. No energy.
Best shows:
EPMD, Public Enemy, DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince, and Run-D.M.C. the summer of 88 – My introduction to EPMD. Really couldn’t understand the lyrics other than the curse words, but I was hooked.
Dope Jam 88, Biz Markie, Ice T, BDP, Kool Moe Dee, Doug E. Fresh and the Get Fresh Crew, and Eric B. & Rakim
D.O.C., JJ Fad, Too $hort, Kid-N-Play, N.W.A and Eazy E back in 89 – My introduction to the D.O.C. I think it was before the album was out. Also, Too $hort was pissed at the sound guy.
I’ve attended many good ones but still nothing tops Public Enemy in their prime. Energy and stage presence at the highest level. I also gotta give props to Guru (RIP) as his Jazzmatazz act was the bomb, with the late great Donald Byrd on trumpet and Tony Touch on the wheels of steel, plus a bunch of other great musicians and fine ass N’Dea Davenport.
As far as the worst one, I’ll have to say Wu-Tang Clan. The show was so anticipated that the organizers had the brilliant idea of making it an all day event with many local wack acts opening before the main event. When Wu hit the stage everyone was exhausted, probably even the Clan members themselveses and their show was really weak. The fact that Method Man and Raekwon were unannounced no-shows did not help. The only one going at it was Cappadonna who’s not an original member by the way.
Best; KRS One and Wu Tang New Years Eve Dec 1993/Jan1994. KRS got on stage around 3:00am and tore the place to shreds. Everybody was jumping up and down to the music for a full hour. If you didn’t jump up and down with the crowd you would have gotten trampled. Wu Tang came out afterwards. I’d heard of them but I wasn’t much of a fan…yet. When they performed C.R.E.A.M. I became a fan.
Worst; De La Soul at Northeastern University Summer 2000. They were looking like Larry Holmes, flabby and sick. The crowd was a bunch of white college kids and they weren’t really into it. It was more of a fair/festival type atmosphere and people were more interested in the tables and events than the actual show.
@turtle, Dope Jam 88 was Hot !! Seen the show in Miami. They all came with it.
In recent years:
I was very impressed with Krs One live show in Sydney a Few years back.
Hated nas a few years before that. .. The whole redo the rap catalog with a live band thing generally does not work in my opinion.i know they are trying to fatten up the sound and make it more ‘Live feeling’ for the audience but often makes every song sound the same.
I saw heaps of good acts In the 90s and 00s but memory is vague. Probably due to the amount of alcohol consumed at said gigs.
Gangstarr in Milano 2003 and Company Flow in London 2011 are the best I’ve seen, special mention for Ghostface,Pharoahe Monch and Mos Def. Worst ever would definitely be Doom: seen him 3 times, every time the same flipping show, beats played from a Itunes, no dj and the fattest weed carrier ever helping him on the mic (i think it was his cousin or something).
I was also at this show. WU-TANG
http://www.mtv.com/news/1124/wu-tang-clan-investigated-for-inciting-riot-at-show/
Public Enemy on the Licensed to Ill tour. I’d seen the record in the store and knew they were on Def Jam but I hadn’t heard it yet so I didn’t know what to expect and it was epic.
A few years after that (89-90?) a friend of mine was dating this white rapper dude and I went to his show, which sucked, but he had Q-Bert DJing for him and he did a set between acts that blew my mind, so bad rap show, first exposure to crazy DJ shit.
Best: M.O.P, The Roots, KRS-One, Big Daddy Kane, DMX, Naughty By Nature, Mobb Deep can’t forget that WU-Tang 2000 tour
Worst: Gza (Solo), Keith Murray (This dude is always too drunk)
Freddie Foxxx and Gang Starr philly…Bumpy knucks comes out with a mace ball and chain
Best : Finesse/ Roc Raida, KRS-One, Souls Of Mischeif, alotta good Dj’s in the 90s.
Worst: Necro 2nd show, lost his voice and the whole Necro thing had finished for me by then. I walked out half way through.
Forgot to mention Tim Dog’s first show down at Honky Tonks as one of THE best.
you right picking out the best is tricky. it was actually both in the same night. november 95. onyx, das efx, group home in montreal city. group home didn’t actually perform because melachi got stuck at costums. the opening act on the bill were some unknowns called ICP from detroit. we were all wondering what it was gonna be. then we see these two big bellied white guys with long hair stumbling on stage with some sack ass beat playing behind them. by the time the 2nd song started, too much shit was flying on stage for them to continue. who knew one day those two guys would host their own carnival?
Forgot a few great ones:
– Run DMC & Onyx, 1994
– Company Flow & Black Star, 1997
– Breakestra, 2002
A few, really, really bad ones:
– Special Ed a few years ago. No energy, big letdown.
– Nice & Smooth: same story
– Das EFX (not in their prime, but 8 years ago or so). Didn’t finish a single song and talked more than they rhymed.
– Capone N Noriega
– Blahzay Blahzay
Oh and The Fugees in 1996 were great. Nas opened for them (on the strength of Illmatic, pre It Was Written) but was pretty tame. Jay-Z was incredible in 2008, his band was brilliant.
1992 Rhode Island – Geto Boys / Public Enemy / Naughty by Nature (Geto Boys headlined, almost the entire crowd thought that PE was headlining and after their set people were just pouring out of the arena. My boy and I knew the activity on stage was setting up for more music. We fought our way upstream against the crowd to the front of the stage then the music dropped and Bushwick came jumping out on stage. Ill show.
Also – 1994, Gangstarr/Nas/Jeru/MOP at Lupo’s in Providence, RI.
I was there.88.run,p.e.fresh prince…chairs flying and all.