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The Warfield May 1, 2004 Review by Jake Thomas Despite my early college career when I had one of the only two hip hop shows on my campus radio station, I don’t listen to too much of the stuff any more. The exception to this almost solely the Quannum crew, and specifically DJ Shadow, who I count as one of my favorite musicians of the last 5 years. He has the unique ability to create genre-less music that grabs me in a way that few others do. So this was the final show on the “Quannum World Tour 2004”, and they were finishing things up by a home performance at the Warfield. Things started pretty early and the fans were timely, not wanting to miss any of the festivities. The show consisted of all of the Quannum dudes coming out at different times to perform songs – sort of like a variety show format. The highlight for me for any Quannum show is always Lyrics Born – he has a unique delivery, singing/rapping hybrid with this gruff voice that probably comes across as dancehall more than anything else, but you can actually understand what he’s saying. He and Lateef (known collectively as Latyrx) performed a number of their best songs together, including “Lady Don’t Tek No”, one of my all time favorite hip hop songs. There were also plenty of great Gift of Gab/Blackalicious tracks in the mix, and newcomers Lifesavas were represented as well. But for me, the highlight of the night was the short DJ Shadow set, wherein he performed “The Number Song” and an extended version of “Organ Donor”. It should also be mentioned that during the entire show, the more-than-ample crowd was going nuts for their hometown heroes. And it was plenty fitting – while live hip hop can be hit-or-miss, Quannum is continually professional and extremely entertaining when it comes to putting on a live program. The sound was perfect, the voices clear, and you could here every little scratch and break coming from the DJs. If only all live hip hop acts took things this serious, and created such a fun atmosphere at the same time. ©2004 playinginfog.com |