I’ve gotta ask… Where the hell was Portland at this Kid Sister show? Was it the Wednesday night? Was it the nearly $20+ price tag?
Whatever it was, the lack of folks in attendance inspired the promoters to section off the two main floors at Holocene for an all ages crowd, leaving the narrow bar the only place to hold a drink. Needless to say, this cut down a major chunk of the dancing that might have been done during Rude Dudes & Flosstrodamus’ set. Commendable effort by those guys though. It was almost depressing watching them attempt to hype a headliner in a relatively empty venue.
The social/racial effects of poverty are hardly as evident as they are at a Ghostface Killah show taking place in a small college town. One would expect the crowd to be diverse in both color and status, due to the popular nature of anyone coming from a group so big as the Wu-Tang clan. In a college town however, the large majority of interested viewers are going to be white, well-to-do students. This is exactly how the crowd at the WOW Hall was this last Friday. Some were genuine fans of Wu-Tang and Ghostface’s catalog, a few were even fans of Fashawn, but most were just white boys and their girlfriends looking for something, anything to do.
This, of course, isn’t a problem. As long as people are into the music, the event, it should go off without a hitch. For the most part this last Friday, they were.
A very small enthusiastic crowd formed at the front of the stage for the two local acts that began the show. Most of the attendees, however, were in the bar if their age permitted; waiting for the more significant half of the evening to begin. Once Fashawn took the stage, it had. His presence on stage is strikingly similar to how he acts offstage. Not shy to fanfare, and not afraid to push the boundaries of acceptable action. This is to say, he smoked a blunt both backstage, as well as on stage.
I used to be a strong advocate for Trey Songz being the undisputed king of the sensual rap hook. Don’t get me wrong, Songz has proven himself to be above and beyond any young boss trying to claim the top spot. I dunno, maybe it’s the untimely passing of a certain other R&B/Pop sensation that has me super stoked for Lloyd.
Where Trey Songz offers some of the most offensive and appealing hooks to rap tracks, Lloyd offers a genuine, good-hearted melody to tracks that might otherwise be unmemorable or confusing. His Jackson 5 type voice, and heart-felt lyrics make otherwise entirely misogynistic tracks seem as if they were written for the ladies. What Lloyd, as well as many other R&B artists, does is elaborate on a mood already determined by the beat of a particular track.
Take a down-tempo track like ‘Ghetto Queen’ by Jody Breeze. By itself, the beat evokes sensuality and intimacy; and though Breeze’s voice is tailored to match this particular beat, there’s a hood element that confuses the mood. In comes Lloyd to put the track back on… track. The childish high points of Lloyds vocals create an ambiguity that acts as a perfect contrast between the male-dominant ‘hood’ elements of the verses, and the sensuous beat that is surely intended to appeal to a female audience. Repeat this a number of times, and you have a number of different reasons to love Lloyd.
These, however, are only a few reasons to appreciate Lloyd. Fact is, the man has a number of his own tracks that shine without the help of his hip-hop peers, dating back as far as 2004. Some may consider Lloyd a ‘new-jack’, but the fact is at 23 years old Lloyd has accomplished a lot. Don’t take my word for it though. Check out these tracks below, and join me in looking forward to Lloyd’s Fourth release (and sequel to 2008’s Lessons In Love) Lessons In Love 2.0.
I actually wanted to buy this track, and attempted to do so through amazon.com, but they informed me that I wasn’t allowed to because of “geographical restrictions.” And it wasn’t anywhere in the blogosphere. So i tracked down Akala’s album as a torrent, and I’m releasing his track Shakespeare since I’ve been obsessed with it since I heard it on the Scratch Pervert’s 2007 Mixtape “Watch the Ride.“ Using a loop from the first measure, I’ve been dropping this track in my sets as a way to transition from 70bpm hip hop into some high energy ghettotech. The instrumental (plus 1 drum layer, and 1 floatey synth layer) is lifted directly from the 2004 international dance floor anthem, Loneliness by Tomcraft. Enjoy
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When I first started DJing many years ago, the house parties I was doing never wanted to hear electronic, so I would blast mostly top 40 hip-hop party jams. In my own bedroom however, I jammed to the more intelligent jazzy hip-hop sounds of Arrested Development, Black Sheep, Black Eyed Peas (before Elephunk), A Tribe Called Quest, and Digable Planets. You know, pre-2000 hip-hop.
I loved Digable Planets Grammy-winning 1993 debut album, Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space) since I could pick up on the samples from jazz/R&B greats like Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins, and Curtis Mayfield. After the trio’s second release Blowout Comb, they separated to pursue their own projects (of which Ladybug Mecca’s work stands out the best, she even released some jams on Om Records!). They reunited a decade later and promised the release of a third album in 2005, of which I’m still waiting to hear.
I do have the opportunity this week however to go here them live here in Portland with other great hometown hip-hop heroes Dj Rev. Shines and Nico Luminous. Thank God it’s at the 2410 N Mississippi space and not the Roseland.
FBM is a blog written about all kinds of music. We often focus on small acts and DJs, promoting and loving what we consider to be the very best in Indy, Dubstep, House and far beyond. We are a collective of (currently) unpaid kids based out of Portland Oregon. We urge you to support this music and hence we will provide the the most accurate show listings and heads up on things to do in Portland.
This is all those things but more then anything else this is about community, about having as many authors contributing as much as possible and promoting all of our friends. I believe in politics as still being important and I believe in this generation still being relevant. Our culture is all we have.
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