I didn’t catch much of the 2nd stage which was located inside of St Ann’s Warehouse because I was enjoying the nice air conditioned space of the Tidal lounge, who were one of the sponsors of the show. When I finally when outside to the main stage, Rhapsody was performing. I didn’t catch her from the start but what I did catch sounded great and she would later come out on Talib’s set to perform a song with him.
Talib Kweli would hit the stage next and had a very long set, about 50 minutes and ran through a ton of hit records, both solo and his verses from Blackstar songs. Kweli has great energy and would bring out Brooklyn legends Buckshot, Special Ed and Masta who were the original Crooklyn Dodgers and performed the song in it’s entirety. As mentioned before Talib would also perform with Rapsody and of course he ran through hits like “Get By” and “The Blast” which was very appropriate at the time since it was pouring down raining in Brooklyn for a brief period. Talib may be known as an underground artist but he’s always walked a fine line as his music is socially conscious without being overly preachy.
The act I was waiting to see was up next and that’s another Brooklyn native, Fabolous. I’ve never seen Fab do a live set before so this was the highlight of the day for me. Fab came out to “Lituation" off of his Young OG Project album and proceeded to go into “Ball Drop” and “The Plug” respectively. Fab was just getting started though as he went through a few throwbacks like “Can’t Deny It”, “Young’n” and “Breath”. It just shows that for over 15 years Fab has ben holding down the music scene with classic records and verses. It also showed the appreciation the audience has for him as they knew all the words even as Fab ran through his songs for the ladies, fans rapped along with him and finished his lines.
Nas along with The Soul Rebels, a brass band from New Orleans would headline this year’s show. This is my 2nd time seeing Nas but the last time I saw him was 12 years ago in Central Park. Nas is my favorite artist of all time, and as usual he did his thing without having one guest on stage to help him fill time. His catalog was so iconic from the start that only an artist like Nas could run through an entire album on stage which he did performing all but 1 song off Illmatic. He also performed “The Message”, “Street Dreams” and of course “One Mic”. Was is a timeless artist who would pick any one of his albums to perform at a show and would be fine no matter which one it was.
This year’s festival was probably my favorite one of all time and I’ve been to 8 of them. No matter who you came to see, no one disappointed. If you have never been to a show but love hip hop, this is the best yearly hip hop show that happens in New York and has had everyone from KRS, Kendrick, Jay-Z, Kanye, Tribe, Common and this year’s performers show up and bless the stage. You owe it to yourself to support hip hop, no matter what you call real, cause this is a show that’s worth every penny.
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