Rock The Bells, lines, lines and more lines…

We just did a massive Lollapallooza write up and Yvettita has given her take on this past weekend’s Rock The Bells festivities in SoCal. Everyone is entitled to their opinion about how they spend their time, here’s a quick rundown on my thoughts from Rock The Bells 2010.

The Good

1. The stage was centrally located with plenty of space to move pretty close to the acts.
2. A Tribe Called Quest killed it! Q-Tip had a superior performance to his UCLA Jazz Reggae act, and Fife looks like he’d been practicing.
3. Moment of the night for me was when Tribe brought out Busta Rhymes and Spliff Starr as surprise guests and proceeded to do a bunch of Violator tracks circa 1999.
4. Wu-Tang was fully in attendance with ODB’s son holding it down as well. I have never seen the full collective and frankly it was an honor and a special moment for me to watch them perform “Enter The 36″
5. Both Wu-Tang and Snoop strayed from their respective albums, which was all good, because we got to see WU perform “Triumph, Method Man perform “Da Rockwilder”, and Snoop put down some classic shit like “Next Episode” and “Murder Was The Case”.
6. Hosing the crowd with water at key moments on account of unbearable San Bernardino heat.

The Bad

1. The parking was overbooked and the lots were closed by the fire marshal, this forced many (including me) to find random, crazy, street parking.
2. When entering the concert grounds, security confiscated cigarette packs (but no single smokes), lighters and bottles of WATER! (including Nalgene) from ticket holders.
3. The indoor venue acted as a second stage, the airplane hanger-esque building was lacking sun, fun, and people. Bust.
4. There was no grass, the entire outdoor venue is on asphalt, basically a huge parking lot. That prevented most (not all) from being able to lie, sit or give their legs a respite.
5. The food vendors were limited and pricey. The Jamaican Jerk sauce was weak, and the lemonade was sour.
6. We arrived at 4PM and they had already pushed a lot of artists on the stage. In just 4 hours we had missed Rakim, Slick Rick, DJ Premier, and a slew of young cats.

The Ugly

1. There were lines to EVERYTHING.
2. There was a line to enter.
3. There was a line to get ID checked so you could wear a Heineken bracelet.
4. There was line to buy “event cards” which were prepaid amounts to spend for food and drink.
5. There were lines to get food and drink.
6. The COLD WATER tent ran out of water. So did the bar.
7. It was about 102 degrees for the majority of the day.
8. LAURYN HILL. Man she sounded like Whitney, post -2009, just cracked out.

Played in Full

While peaking at this year’s Rock the Bells lineup, it’s nearly impossible to ignore the fact that a good 70% of the artists are performing their “opuses” in full. Snoop will be performing Doggystyle, Wu-Tang is going to do Enter the 36 Chambers, Rakim, Paid in Full and so on. I wonder what catalyzed this trend. For some of these artists, sticking to a specific cluster of their careers makes sense (i.e. I don’t really need to hear Snoop’s True Blood tribute but hearing Doggystyle is sure to be classic). However, a group like A Tribe Called Quest and to an extent, Wu-Tang, could easily perform a medley of their careers, no disrespect to …36 Chambers or Midnight Marauders, and it would still be ill. Nevertheless, I saw GZA perform Liquid Swords start-t0-finish and it certainly lived up to his watershed’s hype.

Friday Free Joints

MPFREE’S

Wiz Khalifa – This Plane

Lupe Fiasco – Solar Midnite

Cormega ft. Lil Fame – Get It In

Snoop Dogg – Protocol

Drake ft. Birdman – More Milli (Prod. by Boi-1Da)

Tyga ft. Gata – Space Joyridin

Ron Contour – Damage

Snoop Dogg is one creative homie

Snoop Dogg’s uncanny ability to stay relevant in the minds of teenagers for the past 20 some years has very little to do with Snoop, and much to do with us. Or at least Snoop’s genuine understanding of us.

Simply put, there is a very intrinsically human quality about Snoop, and this translates into empathy for others, which we recognize, and reward him for. Us common folk are not the only ones witnessing the gentility of Snoop, the big wigs over at EMI Music have made Snoop the first ever “creative chairman” of Priority Records. I assume they’re hoping to ride the Snoop gravy train right down Easy Street, bidding him to pass his proverbial baton to the future stars of the show. Priority Records will have the distinction of dropping Snoop’s 10th studio album titled Malice N Wonderland, which drops in December.

So next time you’re in your cypher, don’t be shook when a 6′ 4” hood shows up with a suitcase, just put your pound out, it’s that homie Snoop.

Deathrow’s Happy New Home

There are several rap albums that really lured me into the genre: Enter the
Wu-Tang, Dare Iz a Darkside, 3 Feet High and Rising, etc. However, none can compare to the sweaty funk-powered bass of the Death Row Catalog. I remember how enthralling the juxtaposition was between the crass street narratives of Snoop, Dre, Kurupt, 2-Pac and Co. which was put over Dr. Dre’s masterful compositions. I could probably do “Lodi Dodi” flawlessly at karaoke.

Arguably the most successful rap record label ever, it’s output included classics among classics like Doggystyle and The Chronic. But, despite its streak of watersheds, the label went broke and was sold to a Toronto-based entertainment firm called WIDEawake Entertainment for $18 Million, which doesn’t seem like too much considering the mass of influence which is under the Deathrow umbrella.

Apparently Suge’s tyranny led to many mishaps including tons of mislabeled ADATs and a lack of communication between artists and distribution. WIDEawake even claims that The Chronic that we know is not entirely the version Dre wanted you to hear. A big priority for Deathrow’s new home is to work with the artists in terms of mastering and reforming the product to sound like their original vision. The Chronic: Re-Lit shall be their first release.

Snoop Gets Stoopid in Holywood

Arguably the most ubiquitous aroma in the olfactory kingdom (prestigiously beating out Christmas trees, fried chicken and barbecued ribs) and placing giggle-inducing elephants in rooms everywhere, is the musty scent of marijuana.

Promoting their forthcoming Blazed and Confused tour, Snoop Dogg and tour-mates Slightly Stoopid creep into a Hollywood parking lot in a bright banana yellow convertible. The Pontiac’s hood is adorned with remarkably detailed illustrations of Lakers-legends like Magic, Kobe, James Worthy, Chamberlain, and Kareem Abdul Jabbar. And, despite the quartet appropriately glowing with the gently infamous before-mentioned scent, the group of journalists are strictly ordered to abandon any mention of weed when speaking to to the six foot plus rapper. Nonetheless, Snoop appeared jovial about his forthcoming tour:

ZIF: are there any cities in particular you’re looking forward to taking your tour?

SD: I just love rocking shows, any town that shows Snoop love, I show it right back.

ZIF: this tour is fairly diverse, it’s got hip-hop, rock, and Stephen Marley is on tour too so reggae is covered. Do you think the same kids are into all of these genres?

SD: I think so, man, you’re really getting the best of all these worlds; when it comes to reggae, the name Marley’ speaks for itself, and when its rap…you know it’s all me.

ZIF: you’ve been one of the more prolific touring rappers, how is this tour gonna be different?

SD: Just because of the diversity we have, I really think this tour is gonna be just like Woodstock.

In terms of potentially transgressional botany, Slightly Stoopid were far more candid, “smoking weed is just a way of life.” says guitarist Miles Doughty. However, aside from their excitement at roaming the country alongside irie-connoisseurs like Snoop and Marley, the group expressed a good amount of gratitude at being able to tour on such a large scale, “We’ve been playing the club scene for over ten years” says drummer, Ryan Moran. “It’ll be great to hit the road with guys like Snoop, Mickey [Avalon] and Stephen [Marley].

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME DUBSTEP? SNOOP IS!!

Finally, an easy way for me to introduce our faithful hip hop heads to the genre we be bumping and pumping right now in L.A.— DUBSTEP!

Peep Snoop do his thing on this Chase & Status banger

LionStarr is actually trying to do some colabo work with some hip hop MC’s and Dubstep producers, we’re glad to see that the big boy’s are thinking of the same thing. Get at us…

MPFREEEE:Snoop Dogg Millionaire ft. Tanvi Shah