I spent Friday evening in 5 Points at the Cervantes Masterpiece Ballroom to see Ill Bill, Cage, Brother Ali, & Face Candy (featuring Eyedea). This is kind of an interesting line-up since it combines a couple of up and coming, well, thuggish artists (though I suppose Ill Bill is already established through Non-Phixion), with a couple of artists from Rhymesayers demoing new ideas and material.
The concept of Face Candy is really great– Eyedea (of Eyedea and Abilities), with a bass guitarist and a jazz drummer. It’s really hard to describe, but something to the effect of Eyedea going freestyle with a flow similar to Doseone, with minimalst folk/jazz music to accompany him. JT Bates was an AMAZING drummer.. I have never seen someone rock a small set like that (it was just a snare, bass, 3 cymbals, and a hi-hat) and get so much sound out of a simple set. I really love any sort of hip-hop combined with live instruments, and honestly they were the unexpected highlight of the night for me.
I think since it’s a side project for Eyedea as they don’t have any material out at all, but here’s hoping they’ll put something out (a live album would be especially great). The crowd which came to the show was really sort of bizarre to me, but then again I’m sure most of them were there to see Ill Bill. At first they reacted fairly pooly to Face Candy, but as they played on you could kind of see the crowd getting into it (you have to understand they had a vastly different sound than anything else that night), but by the end of their set they recieved a lot of applause and respect.
Cage followed them and put on a pretty decent show. I’m just barely familliar with his material and it’s honestly not my style, but it was pretty good.
Brother Ali came on next who puts on a great show– I was very impressed with him when I saw him precede Atmosphere a couple of years back. He’s currently working on a new album with Ant, and he had to of been playing some of that material which all seemed very promising. I liked his performance better the first time I saw him, but he still did a great job.
Ill Bill came on to close up the show, and it was fine I suppose. I just think there are many other artists which I’d rather see live as neither Ill Bill or Cage are really the type of stuff I’m into (which probably explains all of the sideways hat wearing thugs at the show). I liked their production, but generally speaking I don’t think their rhymes were anything to get excited about both in ingenuity and content.
Next on deck for me is a two day concert blow-out; Atmosphere, Blueprint, and POS on November 10th, and Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Jean Grae, and Pharaoh Monch on November 11th. I’m really excited about both of these shows, especially if Mos and Talib perform any of their groundbreaking Black Star material together!
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