The Hip-Hop Live Tour: a review

Last Friday’s Hip-Hop Live Tour revealed two facts. One was entirely expected and the other entirely surprising.

The expected: Despite a strong lineup featuring Talib Kweli, David Banner and Little Brother, backed by a shit-hot live band, the Rhythm Roots All Stars, the turn out was mediocre. The crowd filled up less than half the Roseland Theater.

The surprise: David Banner, rapper of boring, sexually explicit commercial rap, was an explosive dynamo on stage, constantly moving, roving into and out of the crowd, sweat dripping off him like a waterfall from pure physical exertion.

After a lifetime of seeing rappers give low-energy performances, Banner’s dedication to his live show was staggering. And even though he spit maybe two whole verses during his entire 45-minute performance, Banner owned the crowd.

An incomplete list of David Banner’s antics:1) Opening up simply enough, he sang a classic Rakim verse. Respect.

2) Banner climbed the stage monitors and danced through the complete circumference of the upper-area balcony, jumping the 15 feet directly from the balcony to the floor. This is how you get a party started. He did this once more during his time on stage.

3) During one of his many forays into the audience, Banner snatched a cell-phone from a women’s hand, got on stage, stuffed it down his pants, took a picture and threw it back into the crowd. “Yeah, I just took a picture of my penis. How do you like that?”

4) After calling for the crowd’s Latino and black population to exclaim their pride, Banner said, “Y’know, no one ever gives white people any love. This is for you.” Then the band played Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” while Banner crowd surfed. Gross pandering? Probably. Weird? Most certainly.

5) Banner somehow transformed one of his songs into a speedy punk number.

Here’s the point: David Banner revealed himself as an enigma. And that had very little to do with his music.

On Talib Kweli:Kweli has long looked for solo success since his time in the brilliant Black Star with Mos Def. While his output is well loved among hip-hop heads, his albums, like last year’s Eardrum, generally fall flat. In the live setting, he’s a competent if unexciting MC. But after the kinetic marathon that was David Banner’s set, it was nice to see a pure lyricist hold down the stage.

More photos from the Hip-Hop Live Tour can be seen here: Hip-Hop Live Tour photostream