March 25, 2008 | Tags: none

I spent the majority of this past weekend out listening to (not always enjoying) live music as I said I would last week. Originally I was hella excited, but I have to admit, right before the weekend started, like an hour or two before I got off work, I sort of didn't want to go. Paid Dues Festival is one of those all-day concert things, and afterwards I'm normally dead tired, and that's on days where I've a had a full night’s sleep. Going to a show like that after being at another show the night before? Needless to say I expected to be extremely fatigued. After a couple of hours of pretending to work and much thinking, I figured that this would be the first of many weekends to come in which sleeping to 1PM wouldn't be an option, so I better soldier it out and get used to it. After several phone calls to see if my peoples were going too, throwing up an awfully late "Free Ticket Give Away" blog, getting fresh and getting directions and I was off.

So garbage I should slap the shit outta you

So after getting lost in Beverly Hills, I finally arrived at the Key Club. I got up with Somobe's manager and got in early enough to get a drink before they went on. I don't have to say they did their thing, cuz by now that should be known. I checked the cats that were there and seen the heads nodding, a clear sign of crowd approval. After they finished doing their thing I chopped it up with Jon D for a hot second. He informed me that several other acts were performing before the Liks.....WORD? For those of you that have been checking my spot for awhile you know I used to do the "West Coast Future Fridays" thing. Well, Somobe was one of the acts I was completely blown away by. Them, the Native Guns, and other acts, however....there were other cats I never would have wasted my time on. Not to say everybody I didn't write about was garbage, some of them I debated back and forth about. Some of them were cool, just not what I was looking for. Some of them however, there was no debate necessary. Garbalocious. Some of these cats were even worse.

I can assume this Sean Healy cat didn't put this show together strictly based off talent. Guessing how everybody in the crowd was either a rapper getting ready to go on stage, or a friend of the rapper on stage, I'm assuming he let anybody perform that could sell tickets. Everyone can't rap...somebody has to be fans. One guy even asked me during a garbage performance "This isn't the Liks is it?" After I told him no, he asked me how many people were in the Liks. Wow! This isn't the first time I've been at show out here with dope artist (in this case, Somobe, The Liks) only to be embarrassed by the other people at the show. I remember at a Zune Concert it took like 10 different people before somebody could get onstage and name all members of Wu-Tang Clan for a free Zune. Back on Topic, these one cats got on the stage...I swear to you they brought their whole hood. There was like 20 cats (no lie, I may be underestimating the number). I thought they were supposed to be some ill clique or something, come to find out only one of them spit (if you can even call it that). Why did these niggas (yes, I'm calling them that) have like 3 bottles of champagne among all 20+ of them? The rap nigga starts babbling about all sorts of BS:

"It's my nigga's C-Day today"
"I'm tryna be a Billionaire in this bitch"
"Ay niggas, pop them bottles"

then after 10 minutes of intro, he finally starts drooling out his garbage bars. When the were told their time was up and the next act got on stage, they started complaining (I guess dude forgot all that time he wasted), then they basically hijacked the stage for one more song. Out comes the little rap nigga with no shirt on, and his gangsta clone ass homies dancing all over the stage. This wasn't the worst of the night though. Of this whole weekend I only have 1 video (I'm not really feeling my camera), and that my friends belongs to these Malibu's most wanted A alikes.

yea, so as you can see, cat's was awfully garbage. When the Liks finally came out the night finally got back on some real shit. Not only did Tash, J-ro, and E-swift rip the stage like this was 10 years ago, they brought out King Tee (who probably wished it was 10 years ago, when he was 45), Xzibit came through and tore it up, shit Even Sean P and Rock (who were gonna be at the show the next day) came through and spit some shit. Defari was in the house, the Likwit Crew was definitely in the building. All we needed was Phil The Agony, and shit they probably would have had to shut the place down. Unfortunately after all the garbage rap, I was extremely exhausted. I left towards what I figured as the end of the show. The show started great and ended great, the only problem was I didn't leave early enough to cop some Hennessey for my AppleYac (C). Sleep I did for the next show.

Like I said in the comment section of the last blog, I apologize for coming so late with the free ticket. As I network with other people, I'll have more free shit, next time I'll announce stuff way ahead of time.

Who the fuck died and left you as the closer?

I lied. I damn near woke up at 1PM on Saturday. I woke up around 12ish, rushed to get ready and off I went to the middle of nowhere Southern Cali, San Bernadino.

Much props to the Goddamn Editor, J-23, and Allen (who I believe is down with Guerilla Union) for holding me didown.

So I got into Paid Dues just in time for the people I didn't really care to see. The crazy thing is I normally love to catch the opening acts, cuz a lot of times there the dopest cats, and it gives me new music to "acquire", however after the night before, I didn't really care to see anybody I didn't know. This gave me time to kick it at the HipHopDx booth. I like kicking it at the HipHopDx booth at shows cuz you get to see the people that check the site out. One dude came and complained stated his opinion about the sites reviews. Truthfully, the reviews on this site are the whole reason I got down with the site. When I asked him about the sites blogs, he said he "Yea I read them sometimes, I read that one about Kanye being the most overrated"...score! He said he agreed with some parts of it....but once he went on to praise 50 and say "Curtis" was better than "Graduation" he sort of lost me. I'm sorry dude, I'm seriously gonna give that album a listen...one day. Much props to The Malcontent for coming out to check out real music, I ran into him over in the VIP section.

As far as the acts go, my favorites had to be P.O.S and Hiero. I've never caught either of these acts before, so that might have given them the edge over acts like Dilated and Little Brother, yet and still, those cats killed it. I had barely heard much of P.O.S. prior to the show. One of my friends said he was dope, but his description of dudes music + the one or two songs I heard from him sort of kept me at a distance. Once I heard him onstage, I couldn't wait to leave the show I search for his album "Audition". If you haven't heard dude before, check him out. He's down with Rhymesayers, and to me, he sort of sounds like a Slug/Brother Ali/Rockish hybrid. He killed the performance. Hiero also did their thing. Funny shit; Hiero had Musab come out and spit before the whole crew came onstage and performed. He spit a bunch of bullshit. The funny thing is, you could hear all of the Hiero crew, there mics were on. During Musab's "performance" you could hear the anger in their voice as they said amongst themselves "Let's go on NOW", then they told Musab "Stop it, it's a wrap". He walked off the stage trying to hide the embarrassment. Hiero was without Del, who was out in ATL entertaining everybody at the A3C festival. They still did their thing. They performance, like Tha Liks the night before, seemed like this was like 10 years ago. These cats are 10+ years deep in the game, still in their performance prime. They spit bars flawlessly while constantly moving. Shit sounded just like it did on their CD's, except live. Not everybody can do that, and truthfully I understand. It's alot different rapping into a mic in a booth, and rapping on a hot ass stage, while moving. Shit, have you ever tried talking while jogging back in PE class? Shit doesn't sound the same as it did when you were doing your stretching out minutes prior to running.

Everybody pretty much did their thing. I wish Boot Camp would have had more time. SuperNatural came out in the middle of the show kicking a freestyle. He would reach into the crowd, grab things from people, and throw that into rhyme. I thought that was pretty dope. The real shocker of the show was the closer.....Sage Francis. Truthfully, I haven't really listened to enough of Sage Francis albums to really diss him too much, I just know I seen him before and he was cool, but not somebody I would wait to see at the end of the show. Add in the fact Murs isn’t the biggest Sage fan either, and it's really puzzling. Somebody suggested maybe Murs wanted Sage to go last so everybody can walk out on his show, and he can feel like an idiot. Somebody else told me it wasn't really Murs' call who went last. Who knows, maybe Murs and Sage are doing Felt 3 together instead of Slug and Murs and they performed together...I sure as hell don't know, cuz I left. Sure I understand I could have possibly missed something really crazy like the year I left Rock the Bells early cuz Wu took too long to perform and Lauryn Hill came out and performed...but shit, I was tired. I'm sure Murs probably performed at the end (even though he wasn't listed as performing) but I've seen Murs perform a billion times, and will probably catch him perform a billion more times, I could afford to miss it once. Plus...I was trying to get my AppleYac (C) so I had to go after Little Brother got off stage (right before Sage Francis). I wasn't the only person who left. Truthfully, some people left after Dilated Peoples performed (before Little Brother) but nowhere near as many who left after LB. Who knows, maybe the Sage fans were waiting outside, I sure as hell don't cuz I bounced.

So what did we learn kiddies?

Don't put Sage on at the end of the show
Rapping isn't for everybody, some of ya'll need to stop playing and flip them damn burgers
Brillyance is addicted to AppleYac like Lil Wayne is to Sizzurp (no dipset)

I'll probably be at the Street Sounds concert (is it Street Sounds, or Science...?) with Kweli, Krs, Strong Arm Steady, Planet Asia, Evidence, and others. Until then, just keep reading the blogs.

PS. No Rock the Bells lineup. Word on the street is it should be out soon (How soon? I'll never tell!)

The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the writer and not necessarily those of HipHopDX.com or Cheri Media Group.

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