Toronto Gets Its Bells Rocked By Hip Hop Heavyweights
Posted July 21, 2008 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Putting several thousand hip hop fans in a dark, cavernous Mississauga hangar for 12 hours on a rainy Sunday is a formula that hardly guarantees positive results.
But in its second annual stop in the GTA, Rock The Bells, rap’s Lollapalooza, a self-proclaimed World-Class Hip Hop Platform, more or less delivered as promised.
Despite a late, wet start, fans paying as much as $175 a ticket did see most of the acts promised – 10 in all – a vast improvement over the tour’s first stop less than a year ago, which thanks to bitter cold and several no-shows is considered by some among the worst organized rap concerts the city’s ever seen. And that’s saying something.
Of the few early notables inside Arrow Hall, Chicago throwback duo The Cool Kids pumped bone-vibrating beats, rocking a sparse crowd in the early afternoon but giving astute fans reason to be optimistic about the future of the genre’s production along with 9th Wonder associate Murs, who kept the crowd moving without a DJ.
It was a refreshing dose of relevance, to take nothing away from the rest of the day, which more or less equaled a sweaty crash course in hip hop history.
Hall Of Fame emcee Rakim was perhaps the best such example, performing a mere handful of his classic tracks before citing ‘technical difficulties’ and quickly fleeing from sight.
At least he was okay. Hours earlier, when the Prince was already well behind schedule, host and freestyle legend Supernatural (above, left) told fans he’d been in ‘an accident’ and would hopefully be there in 10 or 15 minutes.
But while Rakim, or rather, the lack thereof, was one of the day’s valleys, ‘Super-natch’ as he’s often called, was certainly a peak.
Having to keep a crowd rife for restlessness at bay for 30 minutes at a time early on, he kicked hundreds of bars using items from the crowd and backed by equally legendary DJ Scratch, was one of the more entertaining elements of the entire show. “We’re making a whole album up here today,” he half-joked. He was hardly e xaggerating.
The later stages needed a lot less help.
Long Island ‘s De La Soul (below) delivered a typically solid 45 minutes of their patented sound, while also-actor Mos Def put together a mostly-experimental set, feeding a half-willing audience a host of newer tracks in favour of the hits they clearly sought.
But then things got hot. The long-awaited reunion of The Pharcyde (pictured below and at top) brought an infectious energy to almost every artist that followed, setting the whole crowd on an irresistible wave of live musicianship and frenetic movement along with the Cali rhyme outfit.
“We’re so old we’re new again,” one member boasted over the group’s constant chorus of blazing lyrics.
Wu-Tang Clansman Method Man (below) and his Def Squad partner in crime Redman surprised some who frankly, suspected they might not get across the border, quickly launching into their set, which included two solid stage dives over a media pit and the announcement that How High 2, the sequel to their 2001 film about two guys that get into Harvard by smoking marijuana grown with their smart friend’s ashes, could be released as soon as 2009.
And with hyper-political acts like Dead Prez and Immortal Technique either unable to enter Canada or simply not bothering to try, all-time great Nas (below) schooled the peaking crowd on Fox News and gun laws, but most movingly thundered through a track from his new album featuring a chorus built around a Tupac Shakur sample that echoed, “We ain’t ready to have a black president,” and contained an actual clip from U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama.
Even the full, original lineup of A Tribe Called Quest, who Nas called, “rap’s best group ever” as he left the stage, was hard-pressed to follow that, though those that stuck around were treated to a lengthy set kicked off by a Q-Tip solo effort and ‘duet’ with the aforementioned Mos Def (below).
And with that a solid half-day of hip hop came to a close. The rain let up, and as people made for the sticky, yet unbelievably refreshing night air, stepping through countless cardboard pizza trays and empty water bottles, it couldn’t help but feel like a success.
Bottom line: There’s definite room for improvement if and presumably when Rock The Bells makes its next foray north of the border, but with several thousand hip hop fans crammed into a dark, cavernous Mississauga hangar for 12 hours of a rainy Sunday and no real negativity to show for it, there was also plenty of improvement on display.
