On May 23rd, LL Cool J, Ice Cube, Public Enemy and De La Soul kicked off the Kings of the Mic Tour in Tucson, Arizona. It was one helluva concert--one of the best I've seen, in fact. If you haven't already missed your chance, do yourself a favor and get "down with the kings." You will not be sorry.
As I'm trying to shake off the dust of simply not having blogged in some months (!), I'm gonna take it real easy on myself with this post; I don't have the energy for full-on review and I ain't even gonna try. What I will do, though, is quickly detail my top 3 favorite Kings of the Mic Tour concert moments:
#3. My third favorite moment came when I saw Ice Cube boogie--albeit briefly. Cube has had a really good sense of movement, in terms of his stage presence. But he has never tried to present himself as a dancer. He's too "G" for that. But he was obviously feeling good about his performance. Near the close of his monster set, he tossed his gold mic across the stage to Dub C and "repped that west" with a few smooth steps of the O.G. Crip Walk--done with the biggest smile on his usually snarling face.
#2. Flavor Flav taking the stage. Like many others in attendance that night, I somehow found myself not expecting Flavor Flav to be performing with Public Enemy. That carried with it no small measure of disappointment; Flav has always been the wild and crazy Yin to Chuck D's disciplined Yang. But a few minutes after Chuck, Professor Griff, DJ Lord, Davy D (yes, that Davy D) and the S1Ws were introduced, Flav ran out and sent the audience into an elated tizzy. Yeahhhhhhh boyyyyyyyy!
#1. My top Kings of the Mic Tour moment came when LL Cool J and Chuck D performed together. That's right, kiddies! In addition rocking classics like "Jack the Ripper," "Radio," and "Going Back to Cali," LL performed a handful of tracks from his newly released Authentic. When the song "Whaddup" began to play, which features a Public Enemy sample, Chuck D dashed out and rocked the hook live. I can't even describe how good it felt to see those two legends of Def Jam rocking the stage together. (But you can get a hint of what it felt like from this clip that someone who was much further back posted to YouTube.)
Honorable mentions
• Arizona's own DJ Z-Trip backing LL Cool J on the wheels of steel.
• Having a seat so close to the stage (7th row) that my hearing was almost damaged––seriously.
• Hearing LL rock a medley of tracks including songs by other artists, like Eric B. & Rakim!
• Hearing the homeboy Darrell D complaining about the $35 dollar price on tour t-shirts...and then watching him leave to get one near the end of the show because it was such a great concert! Haha.
1 comment:
i actually dropped $40 bucks for the "big boy" size concert t-shirt. still can't believe i did that.
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