Your Favorite White Boy

I was hoping that some kind soul less lazy than me would post some dope footage of the Big Daddy Kane concert that I attended on Thursday night. Luckily, someone did.  Props to Its Official.  That’s a perfect clip too – the house came down when Kane got into “Warm It Up”.  It was a dope show and BDK, who’s pushing 40 now, killed it.  That got me thinking about the present state of the rap game.

Some people may bitch about how everyone seems to talk endlessly about how “hip hop is dead” and “what’s missing in the game” and I’m certainly a primary offender.  But the main reason for that, like many heads, is that I just love hip-hop too much to want to see it get wack as hell and die off.  Not that its in jeopardy of becoming the next disco, but its that love and critical opinion that keeps artists on point and striving to do new and better things.

But back to Kane.  Its tough to compare today’s shows with the kind of performace Kane brought to the table in Toronto last week.  There weren’t 5-10 crew members roaming on stage repeating his lyrics; there was no megathug posing; no drama from an egocentric artist. Kane knew people wanted to see a legend bring out the heat and he did.

It was a beautiful site. Even before the show started, the DJs were filling the room with classic hip-hop joints.  And everyone was rapping aling to all the favorite standards.  When Kane did jump on stage, the place was packed, everybody was vibing, cats breakdancing in the middle of the spot.  People were singing out all the lyrics, doing the old give and go with Big Daddy himself.     Pure hip-hop.

Its ill that showmen like Kanye and Jay-Z and even Diddy get clowned on for not being “hip-hop”.  What does that make Kane?  There were dance routines, “tributes”, encores – the whole nine.  And the crowd loved it.  BDK came to put on a show and that’s exactly what he did.   Kane put the same energy into a crowd of 1,000+ that he would have with any stadium show.

I’m all for the rugged, gritty type hip-hop.  There’s a place for that and I dig it as well.  But at one point, “MC” meant “Move The Crowd” and that doesn’t seem to be a priority right about now.  Heads want to bring it back to “the essence”, but what is that exactly?  Before everyone was thugged-out hardrocks, cats like KRS-One, Kane and Rakim were blowing the roofs off of shows just like this one.

Every so often, I get a great reminder of why I love hip-hop so much that I blog about it.  This was one of those times.  That’s why Kane is a legend.  Are you freshmen watching?

Tags: Big Daddy Kane, Concert, Toronto