Capitol Hill Block Party is here, kidlings, with more bands than
ever before! So make sure you go to support all the hiphop like the
Physics, Common Market, Champagne Champagne, and…
wait, is that all? Hey fuck it—dude from the Hold Steady did a track with P.O.S, and once is good enough for me!
Before all that, though, catch the long-running night presented by
the good folks at Project Mayhem, Foot Traffic on
Thursday, now at the Re-bar with Ricky Pharoe, Canary
Sing, Mic Flont & Khanfidenz (Mind Movers),
Suntonio Bandanaz aka Asun, DeRoxs (Wolfpakk) and DJ B-Girl and the Elefaders.
On Friday at Rendezvous, you can satisfy your fix for a sweatbox
basement rap jam at the fourth installment of The Corner,
featuring the Step Cousins—that being the marvel team-up
of Macklemore and XP aka Xperience of
Oldominion. XP himself has some crazy material out right now
with both Oldominion’s excellent (and currently very limited-
release crew reunion LP) Make Happy and
They, and the album from his side crew Sound Asylum (no
Dave Pirner, damnit). You’ve also got Grayskul‘s almost
frighteningly fierce JFK, the (for now) slept-on storyteller
known as LaRue, and Soul the Interrogator, who will be
dropping his Prawdukt LP in August. The Corner just keeps on
jamming, man, packing in enthusiastic crowds that could teach a thing
or three to these half-dead arm-crossin’-ass crustaceans infesting most
local shows. Get down, get into it.
Lyrical miracle alert! All MCs, report to battle stations! Sunday
and Monday, July 27 and 28, backpackers will have their own personal
Bonnaroo, as battle rap’s patron saint Canibus will be doing
two, count ’em two, nights at Studio Seven. Bear witness to literally
THOUSANDS of bludgeoning bars devoted to mind-boggling displays of
lyrical supremacy. Both nights will also feature Dylan Dillinjah (yes, THAT Dylan, from Making the Band 2—the one so
hilariously portrayed by Dave Chappelle. “I rip and I rhyme, I rhyme
and I rip!”) Openers on Sunday are Khingz and Asun &
Kasi. On Monday, peep out Waves of the Mind and Yirim
Seck setting things off.
Okay, so yeah, I stopped being excited about Canibus pretty much the
second I got his debut album home (back in good ol’ ’98) and heard the
execrable “Rip Rock”—or maybe it was the “Ghetto Superstar” video
(he was decked out head to toe in silver body paint like he was at
goddamn Burning Man)? After a lengthy career of stall-outs and bad
choices, it’s hard to pick just one place and time. But that’s just me.
I know the man still has a solid fan base—devoted backpackers who
hang on his every multi-multisyllabic word. So there’s no reason
that you, the devoted ‘Bis fan, should not get your cranium lasered by
his expandable mandible. Or something to that effect.