On the Real

Some weeks ago, my friend Jamie told me to keep Tuesday open for some sort of mystery man-date. He then had to reschedule in two weeks because of some work drama, but the event would still be on a Tuesday. I was guessing that it would be us going to Comic Book Club, since I'd mentioned a while ago that we should check it out.


I'd never have guessed that I'd be seeing a musical. But, there we were, two straight men in the mezzanine, talking about our girlfriends until the lights dimmed. I recently read a piece in the New York Times Magazine about Stew, the play's writer/subject/performer, and thought some of the ideas in the production sounded cool, but filed it away in the back of my head. A while back, Jamie had played me some of Stew's music–from his band The Negro Problem and his solo stuff–and while I dug the power of his voice and the smartness of his lyrics, the music overall sounded too neat, too mannered for me. Passing Strange elicited the exact opposite reaction out of me. The play's a piece of "autobiographical fiction" that traces Stew's coming-of-age from South Central LA to Amsterdam to Germany.



Stew's songs wrap humor around tension around sadness with a bunch of funk, church and Broadway sprinkled all over them. (Now that I'm writing this, the music sorta reminds me of Cee-Lo's solo albums in their wide-ranging, psychedelic ambition.) He deals a lot with the idea of authenticity, especially as regards blackness. As Stew's onstage avatar tries to figure out what it means to really be an artist, to be really black and to be the real him, I laughed out in certain places where it kinda felt wrong but I couldn't help it.

The staging and the structure are spare and clever, with the small, terrific cast assuming multiple parts, singing along with the band, dancing, vamping and basically doing whatever is required of them. Stew himself narrates and interacts with his younger self, adding a fun metatextual layer to the proceedings. The emotions ring true in every bit of Passing Strange and, as Jamie said, it's good to see a rock musical that actually rocks. As I was watching it, I was thinking everybody I know needs to see this. (Some more than others: *Rakisha*)

There's no doubt I'll be seeing this again.

Check the Rime

I'm out in San Francisco for the Game Developers Conference, which has increased my love of the world of video games, like, a thousandfold. Seems to me like this is where the ideas flow and where people think of games as a medium first, and an industry second.



Last night, Sony threw a great party where Guru and Q-Tip performed. I haven't been a hip-hop concert in ages and honestly, my old, still-on-East-Coast-time ass was thinking about not going. "Oh, I should go home and work. Oh, it's too late. Oh, the show won't start until 1 a.m. Oh, what do I need to see those fools for? I saw them back in the day."

Fuck all that.

This show did what it was supposed to do, which I think was transporting folks back to the days when Sony dominated the home console market, instead struggling for second place the way they are now. The party started at 9, and it was a cool block party set up in a club called Mezzanine. Open bar, finger food, blah blah blah. The event firm did have some nice touches, though: basketball hoops off to the side of the stage, '70s-era flicks projected onto the wall, b-boys and girls uprocking and spinning, and my favorite bit, two barbers cutting heads, so you could get that "fresh fade from Rob" look without going to a barbershop right behind the mall.



Anyway, the other cool thing about this show was that Guru strolled onto the stage at about 10 pm, meaning that I wasn't going to lose my voice for screaming over the music or drink too much because I was bored. His hype man (no, I don't know his name; he's a hype man, for Christ's sake) was type annoying during his crowd warm-up and after, but Keith Elam opened strong with "Mass Appeal." From then on, it was a set heavy with post-Gangstarr and Jazzmatazz cuts. Guru's behind may be on the fringes, but he's stayed busy. I stopped paying attention after the second Jazzmatazz album and, honestly, the shit they did wasn't impressive enough to make me want to run out and get a complete set. I was glad to see that Guru apparently doesn't suffer from much of that angry-rapper bitterness that sets in when trends pass them by. He seemed sincere about the shit he's putting out now through his 7 Grand label. One thing that struck me about his half of the show is the depth of Guru's lyricism. Dude wrote and continues to write some pretty insightful lines. Two things bothered me about his set, though: (1) both Guru and hype-dude kept on reminding us that we were hearing hip-hop and jazz, but a live instrument was nowhere to be found. Kind of a glaring contradiction, no? (2) they also kept on referring to tunes as classics and while some of them were, some of them most certainly weren't. And, y'know true classics don't need calling out.



Which brings us to The Abstract Poet Incognito. I won't be writing as much about this set because, well, I documented much of it. I will say this, though: Tip still wants it. Jonathan Davis came out fired up and showed off a masterful command of the stage and crowd from the first note. The song transitions were seamless and even surprising at times. Dude struck some humble notes during his mic time and never ever seemed to evince an ego which, if I had his body of work, would be more than a little justified. (Unlike Mr. Fiasco, Jonathan Davis really earned his right to swagger.) Tip's band-and-DJ back-up was tight and the man himself ripped lots of classic Quest stuff. He did it all solo, too, reciting other people's parts and even crooning some hooks. The new stuff (maybe two tracks?) sounded good and seems to move away from the overly fusion-y indulgences of the never-released Kamal the Abstract album. (Todd, you better still have that somewhere for archival purposes...) Apparently, there's a new album called The Renaissance coming out in June and after last night's set, be sure that I'll be copping a CD when I get the chance. I'll let the video do most of the talking, but I'll close out by saying that it's awesome when an artist justifies the rose-colored warm fuzziness of your nostalgia.

Hater Aid

Issuu's a new website that converts PDF documents into Flash files. I decided to try it out on an old magazine piece I wrote a while back.