(Pic via the Village Voice)
“Is the Bronx in the house?! Queens?! Manhattan?! New Jersey?! Brooklyn?!” is probably the weakest and most obvious hip-hop stalling tactic out there. Especially when we cycle through it twice. But this is what is happening as we, the crowd (rolling deep in the thousands), wait for
Ms. Lauryn Hill - Rock the Bells’ triumphant wild card, who is now 29 minutes late.
Make that 30.
When Ms. (this prefix is important, so we’ve been told) Hill finally arrives, she is flanked by her band and three A.D.I.D.A.S. tracksuit-wearing back-up singers, who opt for freestyled boogie-ing over synchronized dance moves. They’re not doing a great job of propping her up, as she yells hoarsely at us in a more manly-sounding voice than you’d expect from a small lady. The yelling turns into rapping as Ms. Hill starts with “Lost Ones” sounding, well, lost. She’s flapping around in a sequined smock, beige beret bouncing as she stalks around the stage. In her defense, Ms. Hill is actually throwing energy down somewhat successfully, but quietly we wish she was directing it more accurately at her voice.
As she presses on despite the crowd’s initial indifference, Ms. Hill slowly warms up and cobbles together an image of her former self. Glimpses of brilliance on tracks like "Fu-Gee-La" remind us why she’s still important. And obviously others that we think are important also think she’s equally important enough to stand on the side of the stage for; Ms. Hill drags out Mary J. Blige, Alicia Keys, Swizz Beats, Chris Rock, John Legend and an extremely tall-looking Jay-Z to a crowd making Roc hand signs. “I miss you!!” she roars at the crowd before slinking off. Lauryn, we’ve missed you too.
A Tribe Called Quest is now sufficiently hamming it up enough for us to quit debriefing Ms. Hill’s performance for a minute or so. Out of all the performers today, Q-Tip has probably been the most consistent over the years, and that kind of dedication turns into shit-hot showmanship. Phife has had health issues to deal with so he gets a pass, but Tip is holding it down in the most redonculous of ways, playing with phrasing and tone and basically killing it. Ali Shaheed Muhammad bangs tracks out on the turntables, and all of a sudden Busta Rhymes is onstage looking all beefcake and yelling out the famous and painfully quotable phrase “Oh! My! Gosh! Oh my gosh!”. We’re supposed to be doing
Midnight Mauraders in its entirety, but who can be mad at that?
It’s sufficiently dark enough to see the clouds of weed pirouette above the crowd and into the sky when
the Wu-Tang Clan skulks onstage. They’re a motley looking crew of dudes, and although RZA is wearing a fishing hat we still take him seriously. There’s been a lot of in-fighting amongst all the members but they’re a cohesive bunch right now and deliver
Enter the Wu-Tang 36 Chambers pretty smoothly. So much so that the term “Wu-pool” literally comes to mind, as they circulate around the stage and take turns at being at the front (as an aside, someone may or may not be wearing white robes). No one can clearly be as mental as ODB, but his first-born son Boy Jones gives it a go in his father’s name. He even takes a stab at “Shimmy Ya”; pretty sure he didn’t finish it.
The crowd is thinning out (perhaps more for fear of being trapped on a godforsaken island at 1am than boredom) but
Snoop Dogg rolls out unaffected, the cool motherhugger than he always is. This time his performance has been prefaced by the appearance of a mascot dog wearing a Crips bandana, who dances around the stage for a good few minutes so that we can figure out what animal he/she is really supposed to be (on first inspection it kinda looked like a rabbit—an honest mistake). As Snoop glides around the stage holding his own personalized microphone that says ‘Snoop Dogg’, we realize that the onesie that's hanging off his tree-like body is made out of similar material to the dog’s bandana. So there’s the connection.
Anyway we’re doing it Doggystyle with video interludes that feature Dr. Dre and Pharrell (lessons to be learned: don’t fuck with Snoop, or he’ll blow your brains out - even if you’re a beautiful woman dressed only in a black negligee). Warren G rocks up, as does Kurupt, Daz Dillinger, RBX and the Lady Of Rage and altogether it’s just one big stoner posse, who have also happened to create one of the classic hip-hop albums of the ‘90s. We stay until the very end, Snoop prevails, we try to go home and discover that (as we expected) we are stuck on a godforsaken island at 1am. But it was kinda worth it. Ain’t nuthin’ but a ‘G’ thang, evidently.
Marisa Aveling