Waui Design Blog

This years Rock the Bells performances were a much needed breath of fresh air into the hip-hop community.  With much of the rap music these days being uptempo house inspired tracks or southern hip-hop dance step songs, seeing some of the 90s era superstars all together on one stage in one night, was an amazing blessing to see and for those in attendance to receive a true lesson in hip-hop.

Starting off the all-star line up was the ruler himself, Slick Rick.  Ricky D performed many of the hit songs off of his debut album, The Great Adventures of Slick Rick.  The high point was when he did Children’s Story.  The crowd could be heard singing line by line from start to finish.  We all love Slick Rick for his groundbreaking music and party hits, but I have to say that his overall performance was very lackluster.  He seemed tired, and a bit bored, as he stood in one place for the entire 40 minutes he was on stage.  I think it showed and his set was cut 20 minutes short.  This was possibly due to a lot of empty seats waiting to be filled as it was still early in the day and people were still coming in.

Next up was Rakim (sans Eric B).  The R did paid in full from start to finish.  The crowd was definitely much more alive during this set.  My favorite track was “Juice (Know the Ledge)”.  Everyone in attendance was up for this one.

Moving on we all soon found ourselves in the classroom of the blast master himself, krs-one.  For true hip-hop fans – this was an amazing performance.  He brought some additional help and did many freestyle sessions on stage with the content mainly focusing on education of hip-hip history.  My favorite part was counting down the years and events that brought us to this day in hip-hop.

After another intermission of walking around and taking in the other sights Rock the Bells had to offer, we found ourselves running back to our seats as we heard the announcement that DJ Premier was taking the stage.  With a short set of about 30 minutes (way too short imo) Primo played and talked about mainly the legacy of Gangstarr and the Gangstarr Foundtation.  Playing cuts from Group Home and Guru, the crowd was loving this set.  I only wish it could have gone on longer.  Whenever I think of hip-hop music – DJ Premier is the first thought that comes to mind.

Next up, after about an hour of stage prep, Ms. Lauryn Hill finally made her way out onto stage.  She was dressed in what looked a bit like a dashiki and came running out like she had just downed five 5-hour energy drinks.  The set was high powered at start, but plagued by many technical difficulties, which led to some brief pauses during her set.  I think myself, as well as many others in the house, were taken aback at first by her approach to her classic “The Miseducation of…” album.  It felt like instead of being at a hip-hop show in 2010, that we were attending a Bootsy Collins show.  Along with trippy effects and space ship sounds, the songs were all about twice their original speed and very hard rock driven.  My girlfriend told me during the set that she felt like the amphitheater were going to take off like a spaceship.  It was very out there for a moment, but after about 15 minutes of “interesting music”, Lauryn seemed to calm down a bit and then performed four or so more songs in their originally released fashion.  I felt like this might have been due to crowd reaction and she decided to give the people what they wanted more so than take us on her trip to another world.  All-in-all – still an amazing performance and I think most people will take any version of Ms. Hill at all these days.

This is where the show got started for me.  Introduced by Paul Rosenberg as, “my favorite artists of all-time”, A Tribe Called Quest’s performance lived up to every bit of that line.  I couldn’t agree more that, when I was growing up that, ATCQ was the essence of hip-hop music and they made so many songs that were pure, from the heart, and just kept hip-hop fun.  Their energy, an almost 20 years later, is still as live as ever.  The crowd jumped to their feet with every single song they did off of Midnight Marauders.  They even pulled out some other classics, such as “Scenario”, which called for a guest appearance from Busta Rhymes to bless the mic for the remainder of their time on stage.  In typical Busta fashion, his energy level had the already hyped crowd, bouncing even higher off their feet.  I think this was a high point for everyone.  I loved that they reminded us how amazing that night was.  That The same day they dropped Midnight Marauders, the Wu-Tang Clan dropped 36 Chambers.  And then two weeks later Snoop released Doggystyle.  Oh how we miss those classic album release days.

Next to last… was the WUUUUUUUUUU!  Judging from the t-shirts in the audience, many, many people were waiting for this group to hit center stage and let loose.  The did every single song off the 36 Chambers record as well as others from the Clans solo projects.  This set alone was worth the price of admission.  Filling in for ODB was his oldest son – who, quoting Chef, “looks just like em don’t he?”  It was touching to see how family oriented these groups used to be compared to today’s acts who are made on “making the band” reality shows and forced to work together.  I loved every moment of this set and will definitely have me bumping some music from the shaolin island for a while.

Last, but not least, was the headliner performance from Snoop Dogg.  He was scheduled to perform Doggystyle in its entirety.  This set was “epic” to say the least.  Maybe it was the fact that every single person in the audience had a contact high by now or the fact that we had just now had a walk through memory lane with each and every star of their era building us up this point and time were the Doggfather himself was to hit the stage – that this was nothing short of amazing.  Snoop included pre-filmed short movies before many of the songs to segway each tack along with the interludes from the album.  The stage was filled with smoke and dressed in a neighborhood feel with picnic park tables, low-rider bikes, and the Doggystyle album cover as the backdrop.

The bathtub intro played as the movie rolled with Snoop and Warren G acting out their respective parts.  Once the music dropped, Rage started the show walking out of the wall of the cover and ripped it every bit as hard as she did on the record.  After that, Snoop’s dog mascot came out and danced for Snoop’s verse, which the crowd loved.  Once his verse was done he walked over to a fire hydrant and took a piss as the interlude does.  Which led us into “Gin n Juice”.  Instantely the entire audience jumped up and down with their hands in the air.  The same enthusiasm ensued through each and every following cut off the Doggystyle album.

I think my favorite part was the very deep and cinematic version of “murder was the case” along with the very striped down version of “la-di-da-di”.  One thing about his performance that made everyone in the crowd feel good I’m sure was the fact that Snoop addressed you in a way that was very sincere and real.  He talked out each track and flashed us back to the moment of its creation with introspective thoughts on how it came to life.  It wasn’t just a track after track show – it was very much a telling of how Doggystyle was made and how each moment during this time was special and important to him for a reason.  And that he had his homies with him through it all.  I think once again it just shows more of the same family oriented vibe that you don’t see much in music any more these days. Another personal favorite was an unreleased song off of doggystyle called “g’s up hoe’s down” which was striped from the record due to sample clearance issues.  It was very mellow and once again a personal and real moment of snoop sharing his own with you.

When all was said and done he left the stage but came back for an encore for a few more songs.  the best part of this encore imo was the pharrell take on minnie the moocher by cab calloway (blue brother’s inspired i’m sure) in which he encourage the crowd to chant to bring snoop back out to do more songs.  he let the crowd know that “to bring him snoop out… he actually prefers instead of heidi heidi heidi ho to sing snoop doggy doggy dogg”.  And thus as promised in the sing-along moment, snoop returned to stage and performed “drop it like its hot” as well as “rock right now” from his newest album.  the crowd danced and moved and waved their hands one last time before midnight steadily approached and people remembered that they had work tomorrow.  snoop grabbed a 40 oz. off the park bench and poured it out right before he chucked up the deuce and left the stage.

if you missed it and were’t there to witness it – they were taping – so i’m sure there will be a rock the bells dvd out to see all of the above and more in its fullest form.  i promise you won’t be let down… so be on the look out for it suckaaaas!