audiophillic

I’ve been in love with Hip Hop since it reached my ears in, I want to say 1988 or 1989. Ever since then I have always embraced it. Through the years, I have strayed and gone on to love other kinds of music but always find myself coming back. As of the last 10 years or so, it’s gotten so saturated that it takes a while for someone new to come along and perform actual Hip Hop. To this day, there are a select few who still live it and share it with there fans.

One of those fans was so in love with it, that he decided to start something no one else was doing: bringing Hip Hop acts and sharing them with other fans and their families. While every other venue was charging the avarege $40 bucks and up for shows, he decided to price it at $15 so that everyone could have a chance to attend. No one thought that he could pull it off. And so in 2005 The Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival was started.

The creator of The Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival, and die hard, fan was Wes Jackson. Through his orginization, Brooklyn Bodega, he has been orginizing this event at Empire–Fulton Ferry State Park annually since 2005. Their mission statement according to their website is “Our aim is to highlight Hip-Hop’s legacy as an agent of artistic progression, community building and social change.”

Now I must admit and shamefully so,that I had never heard of this festival until this year. I found out about it 2 days before the show and at 3 AM  I was purchasing my ticket. I was anxious having to just wait a day for it. Even tried to get people to tag along but didn’t have much luck since it was last minute. About an hour prior to the main show begining, I finally found someone. We didn’t start our journey until about 3 hours into the show. When we got to the venue the first thing we noticed was the amount of people that was there for this. It gave me a good feeling just to know that Hip Hop still had a pretty large following.

While outside waiting in line we could hear DJ Marley Marl spinning inside. Once we got inside, there had to already be a couple hundred enthusiastic attendees. There were food booths as well as local companies selling clothes and stickers and such. When you walk in to the right was this sort of warehouse where Marley Marl was spinning music, along with other Dj’s who were on earlier in the day, as some live graffiti in the same building. You can’t have a Hip Hop Festival and not have some live art going on.

To the left of the entrance was the main stage and as we walked up to it, I saw a familiar face walking up and grabbing the microphone. As he began to speak, his well recogizable voice confirmed who I believed it was. It was Ralph McDaniels. He was the long time host for Video Music Box. A very influential show for Hip Hop. And it was responsible for introducing people to alot of the greats who contributed to the Hip Hop culture like Nas, The Notorious B.I.G. , The Wu-tang Clan and so forth. While up there he introduced Diamond District. A group from the D.C. area, and while I had no idea who they were, a good amount of people definitely did. While enjoying their act I noticed that there were a few notable Hip Hop emcee’s casually walking around. I got a chance to not only see Skyzoo talking it up with fans, but also Sean Price. When you go to shows you dont normally see that kind of thing, which is one of the things that made The Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival unique.

Once Diamond District came on stage, Ralph McDaniels announced that Q-tip will let an act come on stage and open up for them. When the crowd heard who it was they went bananas. Walking on stage was Brooklyn’s own M.O.P. and the crowd who had been there all day in the heat seemed rejuvinated and rapped along with their favorite songs such as “Cold as Ice” and “Ante Up”.

I just need to add real quick that I was leaving the festival and walking towards  my car, they pulled up next to us and Lil’ Fame saluted me. Once they were done

with their set it was time for the main act to come on stage. And everyone waited anxiously for him. Then the legendary Dana Dane came on to spit a quick freestyle and with that Q-tip walks on stage and the crowd goes even more crazier than before. I’ve been a fan of A tribe Called Quest since the begining, and as much as I hate the fact that they will no longer be on stage together again, I do love the fact that Tip still reps them. One of the first guest that he had on stage was Monie Love. and they performed the Native Toungue’s greatest song Buddy. But before she walked off stage Q-Tip made her perform Monie’most famous song “Monie In The Middle” and best believe I was one of themany rhyming along to it. In my opinion, Monie has never gotten the credit that she deserves.

After a quick song or two, Q Tip was joined on stage by one of my favorite artists, Black Thought. For a few songs Black Thought was Tip’s hype man and rhymed to what would have been Phyfe’s Dog lines inclduing on my favorite ATCQ song: Bonita Applebaum. I def got a little amped and began to do my famous two step. After Thought came on stage, Tip did a few more solo songs then began to speak when the beat to ATCQ’s “Oh My God” came on. In my head I’m thinking to myself “Nah, he can’t be here”. And as the thought crossed my head the crowd starts to scream and go crazy and Busta Rhymes walks on stage and they perform rocking the stage followed by a “scenario” performance. At this point I had to join the crowd in getting crazy and jumping all over the place.

Busta afterwards began to speak about how much he loved QTip and ATCQ and how close he was to joining that group when he was having his issues with Leaders of The New School. As dope as that sounds, I dont think Busta would be where he is now if he had taken that direction. Then Chris Browns “Look At Me Now” beat comes on and Busta spits his incredibly fast verse. Now if you’ve never seen Busta live before, he does not miss on lyrics while doing this. It’s amazing. After he’s done he throws his mic waves to the fans and walks off the stage. QTip does a few songs from his solo ventures, then he bgins to say how much fun he is having and says that he can’t get much higher. Suddenly Kanye West’s “Dark Fantasy” beat comes on and once again in my head I’m going “nah no way”.

Her keeps on talking so I’m like ok he’s just going to use the intro to the song. Then suddenly the beat drops and out comes Kanye West. And the crowd screamed so loud that I’m sure they heard them across the river in Manhattan. Kanye pretty much was up there taking Phife’s Dogs place as they both went back and forth rhyming to old ATCQ tracks and I for one was did not care at all. It was a very pleasant surprise. Before Kanye walked off he gave him a huge cosign and briefly spoke about the movie that Michael Rappaport had just done on ATCQ and said not to believe what you hear out in the media. He proclaimed his full support for the movie and urged everyone to do the same and go out and see it. All and all, I hade a great time at the festival and will most def come back every year as long as they keep on having it. And I sincerely hope that you guys do so as well..
Peace….

the middle child

Suffixes with the common part -phil- (-phile, -philia, -philic) are used to specify some kind of attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something.

our strong affinity for music is coming soon.