The Wake

Two turntables and a microphone – the staple tools for hip hop artists. Yet, these simple tools are what were turning people off to hip hop, along with its lack of highlighting both live individual and collective talents of a band. Hip hop came down to prerecorded beats, sung over by an emcee.

Recently, hip hop has resurfaced and its popularity is partially due to acts that defy the norms of typical hip hop such as The Roots and local cult-hero turned idol Atmosphere.

Part of the culminating show on Feb. 28 for the Minnesota Programs and Activities Council’s Hip Hop Week, The Roots and Atmosphere joined together to make the jam-packed Northrop Auditorium bounce.

“It’s good to see hip hop associated with the positive as opposed to the negative,” said The Roots guitarist Kirk Douglas in an interview following the show.

Atmosphere’s Slug came out on stage to a familiar crowd of longtime supporters, performing in his hometown of Minneapolis. With a mic in hand, Slug spouted out poetic lyrics, which were accompanied by the live beats of another local hip hop group, Heiruspecs. Shaking his fist to the crowd while spitting out words from his mouth, the bulging veins in his neck and his beat red face were obvious signs that Slug lives by his poetry.

He began by covering songs from his MTV-popular album Seven Travels, but fell back to his old work to treat the worshipping audience that barked back the lyrics to every song Slug sang. It was no broken record, just loyal fans that have followed this artist since he first started rapping.

Atmosphere’s opening was amazing, and in fact, no other opener could have had the same affect on this Minneapolis audience as Slug did. “I caught his act and the crowd was really responsive to them,” said Douglas. “You could tell that folks knew about them.”

When The Roots came out, things did anything but fall apart. Drummer ?uestlove’s beats thundered in the old theater, echoing off the walls and every body that was in the audience. ?uestlove’s bass, along with bassist Leonard “Hub” Hubbard’s bass guitar made the orchestra pit floorboards shake out of their grooves.

As loud as it was, it was perfect.

These beats laid down the tracks for Black Thought’s vocals. He raps lyrics that are unique compared to other hip hop artists, a quality that has put him in a higher league than other rappers.

“These guys not only have intelligent lyrics, but they play their own instruments,” said Ben Tacheny, an undecided sophomore from the University of Minnesota. “Through their music, I found the words; and through the words, I saw the art. Now I understand the music.”

Whether about politics, love, or life, the lyrics and the music all came together through the collective talent of the band.

According to Toussaint Morrison, a student at the University of Minnesota who is an emcee in a hip hop group called The Blend, his love for The Roots evolved when his big brother brought him to one of their live concerts and it reminded him of live jazz. “With The Roots, it’s live instruments and not beat machines,” Morrison said. “To hell with that beat crap. I wouldn’t perform hip hop without a live band.”

What sets The Roots apart from other hip hop bands is their diversity of music. Instead of pure hip hop, they are placed somewhere between hip hop, rock n’ roll, funk, reggae, blues and pop.

“The going phrase is music in a blender,” Douglas said. “It kind of reflects the various tastes of what people in the band listen to.”

The Roots rocked out with covers of Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven,” Rick James’s “Superfreak,” the Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” and Joe Turner’s “Shake, Rattle & Roll.”

“We do this so many times, at an average of about 250 shows a year, so we have to make it amusing because it can get mundane real easy,” Douglas said. “That’s why we try new stuff, and that’s the part of what keeps it fresh – along with seeing different audiences.”

Douglas even pulled out a Pete Townshend windmill guitar swing while jumping around the stage, then singing in a high soprano voice that could easily have shattered glass.

“When we’re on stage, we kind of just rock out. We joke on each other; we make fun of each other,” Douglas said. “We’re putting on as much of a show for each other as we are for you all.”

The concert glorified not only the success of MPAC’s Hip Hop Week, but hip hop music itself. These amazingly talented artists rocked under one roof for one night proving that live hip hop is here to stay and coming alive.