Can I Kick It?!? No You Can’t!!!0
Posted In Features,Music,News
One of my favorite things to do in the world is to go to concerts. Small, or large venue it doesn’t matter I just love the atmosphere and hearing music live. A performance never compares to a CD or an mp3, it’s just generally better as a new element is put into the mix. With live performances there is the artist-crowd interaction, your ability to examine how beautiful the music is, how it interacts with people, the unity it generates. There is an art to live music, which all musicians and performers should come to understand. But when one disregards the art and just goes on stage, grabs the mic and begins a set, its saddening to ones ears and heart.
Everything just becomes a mess; the art behind live performance is lost, as stage presence is not seen, but just an individual on a stage just reciting his songs, with no regards to how one sounds. Questions arise in the fans as to what the artist is saying “Did he say kick it of flick it?” Things such as annunciation is unheard of to these performers, as they mumble there way through a complete verse only to remember the chorus. People pay good money for shows sometimes as little as 5 dollars to as much as 200 dollars, regardless of the price they paid to see you, for you to put on a good show, not for you to give an half ass performance.
One artist that comes to mind in this regard is Jay Electronica. Now I love the guy’s music and he does his thing to some degree, yet his live music is horrible. I saw him at the Root Picnic 2010 and it was just awful. He was given a half an hour set were he only performed three of his own songs. The remainder of the time he was asking everyone how are they doing out there. He then starts to do a karaoke of his favorite artist Notorious BIG, Nas, and Tupac. What the hell is that? I didn’t pay for you to perform BIG and Nas music. I paid to see you perform your music. You come on stage to not perform but to kill time till you are able to collect your check at the end of the show while fans are left with a WTF look on their face, accompanied with a C’mon Son attitude.
Hip hoppers need to take note from performers from other genres such as Mayer Hawthorne, the late and great James Brown. The interaction, the stage presence artist such as they bring is wonderful, truly valued and felt trough time as stories are told about how James Brown put it down, how he performed “Funky Drummer” with a funky drummer. How everyone was bought together by one song, with a call and reply response of thousands of people voices in unison. The next time your at a show and an artist askes the classic: “Can I Kick It?!? What will you’ll be prepared to say?
Fresh Prince & Jazzy Jeff. They don’t make performances like this anymore.
Written By: Brandon Haynes
