First off, I wanna send some love and energy out to my man Shomari,
aka Sho Nuff, a local fixture I know a whole lot of y’all
know—he’s been doing his damn thing since his appearance on
Union of Opposites‘ “Continuations” off that 14 Fathoms
Deep compilation back in the day. The brother recently had some
health issues. Get better soon, Sho, much love.
Okay, I know some of y’all see this rag on Wednesday, so I’m gonna
shout out a couple shows I blanked on last week, both on July 2.
There’s Please Believe at Chop Suey, featuring my man Peoples,
Gator, R.O.B., State of the Artist, and Philly Alto. And
there’s that Weeds-lover (who isn’t?) of a Living Legend, ya boy Luckyiam at Nectar, with The Key with No Lock coconspirators Ricky Pharoe and Tru-ID. Go! Hurry!
On Thursday, July 3, Studio Seven plays host to Emerald City
Heavyweights, featuring a lot of SEA talent: Grieves, Staxx
Brothers, Mind Movers, Khingz (all the stuff I keep hearing from
his upcoming From Slaveships to Spaceships seriously sounds
frickin’ amazing), Asun and Kasi (Alpha P), Wolfpack, Type, Knox
Family (Jerm and Julie C with DJ B Girl), Audiopoet, 33 1/3 (Jewels
Hunter, Graves, and Randy Hanson), Language Arts, Yirim Seck, DJ Luvva
J, and DJ Audeos. Speaking of Audeos, I’ve been seeing
flyers for his popular “The North West” gear and I know I stall on
letting people know where I got my hoodie, so I’ll direct all inquiries
to CrisisNW.com, capice? Alpha P are
staying mad busy that night, as they’re also rocking along with
Sonny Bonoho and the stone veterano Silver Shadow D over
at Waid’s that night. Party train!
Then celebrate your independence—woo hoo. Don’t lose a thumb,
freak.
Then on Saturday, July 5, all lovers of West Coast rap and fierce
lyricism (ooh! ooh!) wanna head out to Chop Suey to catch one of the
underground’s favorites: Long Beach’s own Crooked I. I first
caught Crooked back in ’99 on Kurupt‘s classic Tha Streetz Iz
a Mutha album, where he floored me from jump with lines like “This
is the art of manslaughter/when I’m rockin’ I’m more shockin’/than
droppin’ a boombox in bathwater.” After being marooned on Death Row
Records (now owned by a blond ex-beautician, sorry Suge) for
years, he started makin’ noise again in the last few; he ingeniously
created a whole new wave of buzz for himself with his HipHop Weekly,
where he dropped full-length “freestyles” via the internet for 52
consecutive weeks (that’s about a year, homie). Download ’em all at
www.dynastyentgroup.com—you
just gotta reward a good Protestant work ethic like that. Come check
Crooked out along with Jay Barz, Byrdie, Dough, the Parker
Brothaz, GameBoy the 80’s Baby, and your host, Neema.
Bang bang, baby! 