HipHopDX live
from Las Vegas
for the Magic Clothing Convention and
NBA All-Star Weekend. Tonights show featured local artists Live Soul, the critically acclaimed Little Brother and the Grammy nominated
Lupe Fiasco. The show started out in true Golden Era
fashion with Las Vegas’ own DJ Slimm
spinning back to back early 90s favorites and keeping the crowd amped up. If
you’re ever in Vegas, Slimm is
definitely the DJ to check for. Shit was just straight ridiculous from start to
finish, people were absolutely losing their minds in the crowd.
Hometown heroes, Akili
and Tariq Starr, better known as Live Soul opened the show with songs
that locals may be familiar with and that definitely did not disappoint those
not familiar with the group. For the most entertaining part of the set, the two
MC’s brought an unsuspecting young lady on stage and had a lyrical battle for
her affection. Following Live Soul were the B-Boys (and girls) from
the Sedgwick & Cedar crew who
gave a very impressive performance accompanied by an old school soundscape.
The crowd favorite for the evening was definitely Little Brother. Rapper Big
Pooh, D-Brock and despite
feeling under the weather, Phonte
rocked the hungry Las Vegas
crowd. The ripped through songs from
every possible LB release you could imagine and kept everyone in attendance on
their feet. The winners for the night
had to be Watch Me and God Still Shines Though from The Minstrel Show. The set was closed with a recreated version
of Lovin It which had several beat
changes and Pooh & Phonte rapping over That’s That Shit for an absentee Joe Scudda.
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One of the shows highlights definitely was the unexpected
reunion of Busy Bee and Grandmaster Caz. The original party rockers blessed Vegas with
a slice of Hip-Hop history(ie ba-diddly ba, yes, yes yall).
Closing the show was Lupe
Fiasco, who had a hard act to follow. It wasn’t due to a lack of stage presence, lyrical material, or anything
of that nature, Little Brother just
brought an energy that was unparalleled on this particular night. It was similar to The Hard Knock Life Tour when DMX
and Jay-Z were left to follow a
highly energized Meth & Red. Lupe
didn’t seem to care about the crowd filtering out or simmering down, he still
had fun and put on a hell of a show. He
kept the crowd early in the set with mixtape favorites like Conflict Diamond and Failure and didn’t pick up until the end
with album cuts like Daydreamin and Kick Push which contained pieces of Shook Ones and Nas Is Like. Overall the
show was a success and, once again solidifies the Vegas Hip-Hop scene.
