DJ Stylus - The Vibe Conductor

Fresh Prince and Jazzy Jeff reunite… from MickBoogie on Vimeo.

Fortunately a real hip-hopper was on hand among the Hollywood stiffs to bear witness and capture the moment. Sure is nice when you can land gigs like that.

So I need to buy my ticket now.

Right now.

Will notes that the tour will be all classic material with nothing new. Now I know Will is one of the biggest actors on the planet and the rap game is quite a different animal but I think that if Will got back with Jeff, stopped giving a damn about fitting in with what cats are doing now and just focused on the fun and chemistry him and Jeff still have, they could make a decent record. I believe ?uestlove had some brief discussions with him about collaborating. A bootcamp with Jeff and a lot of the underground talents he keeps around him could get Will back in fighting shape quickly. No ghostwriters, no hot producers of the moment, just back to basics. Maybe being an intergalactic megastar has extinguished the type of energy a hungry emcee has to draw from but he’s Will Smith, he doesn’t have anything to prove. He doesn’t have to worry about sales. He really could approach it from a purist perspective.

Wishful thinking? An old head’s desperate self-delusion?

I just hope the Scientology thing isn’t true.

SHOWMANSHIP. Interplay. Creativity.

No push button dj’ing with explosions and gun shots all over everything. No safety net (the only safety net being the ability to improvise when something goes wrong… and something ALWAYS goes wrong on stage).

And I don’t mean a rap group with a turntablist who does his battle routine in the middle of the show. I’ll take the good ones over most modern day hip-hop shows but it’s not an integrated experience.

A DJ + an MC + a band + dancers. Hella rare in 2008. You definitely don’t need all of those ingredients but the most important part is actually putting some thought into it at the very least. Some personality & charisma go a long way.

Why do people pay money to see bammas walk back and forth across the stage shouting over each other and hardly engaging with the audience except to berate them or bully them? Is that supposed to be entertaining?

No wonder I rarely go to hip-hop shows anymore. And with record sales in the toilet, EVERYBODY has to tour these days, so the quotient of crap shows is shooting upwards.

And the “shows” that aren’t outright belligerent are really pep rallies. Most times if you hear that an act rocked their show, it wasn’t because their performance was particularly engaging. It’s because they have hits and everyone was excited to be in the same room with their favorite rappers yelling the lyrics at the top of their lungs. It’s a karaoke party. Admittedly, that can be fun sometimes (like the last time I saw A Tribe Called Quest) but in general I need a much more substantial experience for my concert dollars.

I guess I’m just old school.

And I’m fine with that.