Rakim/Ghostface/Brother Ali (F/ RhythmRootsAllStars) HOB Sunset Review.

[We Fly High]

anyone go to the rakim/ghostface/brother ali show ? shit was pretty dope. the live band, rhythm roots all stars, definitely made the night in my opinion. definitely going to look into more of their music.

[off on a tangent: Live bands make me sooo much more excited about a show. It can take the show 10x further, and just have such a more complete sound and feeling. Most of the time when its just a DJ and a rapper, the shows going to be wack.  I saw Q-tip at the key club 2 weeks ago jamming with a live band, and he even brought Stevie Wonder out. Snoops always got his band going. The Roots is always jammin hard, never disappointed.]

but onto the review..

Dont really know much about Ali, but he did a good set. his music definitely goes along well with the band.

Ghostface was ehhh... it was cool, the band definitely made it much more bearable. Ghost chose the wrong songs... and also had too many people on stage with him, like 4 hypemen.. and then brought a bunch of girls on stage like he always does.. wasting valuable time when he coulda been jammin with an excellent band. dont remember much of his set, but i remember "ice cream", "cream", "shimmy", "run", "cher chez", .... yeah i really dont remember, haha.

Rakim was prety cool.. although his stage performance leaves something to be desired.. I never seen him before, and from what ive seen before in my life, its always the older cats that know how to rock a show.. but Rakim wasnt really hype enough, although just his presence and song catalog was enough to get the crowd amped. Definitely got a good reception from the audience... he did "in the ghetto", "paid in full", "juice", "I aint no joke", "mahogany", "microphone fiend", "guess whose back", "i know you got soul", among others.

[Laconic]

That would have been lovely to see.

Brother Ali is seriously slept on and like you said sounds great with a live band.  He has been on Conan and Ferguson this year performing w/? as his backing band. 

Rakim also sounds really fresh over some live instrumentation.

[Doggystylin]

i didn't even know they were performing, i wish we had some sort of thread with updates on shows in the area

[CHUCK KNOXXX]

i was there.........it was a great show, although i only caught the tail end of brother ali's set (which is fucked up cuz he was one of the main reasons i went).....the ghostface set was cool, but it woulda really been dope if he did more cuban linx/early wu tang stuff (he did ice cream, C.R.E.A.M, and even did a tribute to ODB by doing the first verse of shimmy shimmy ya).........the best part of his set was when he was talking shit about fake industry rappers, it was pure comedy......IMO rakim was briliant, an absolutey flawless set, he pulled it off effortlessly, made it look easy.......he ran thru all the classicks (eric b for pres, juice, dont sweat the technique, paid in full, aint no joke, etc, etc)......at first i was surprised that he finshed the show rather than ghostface, but after seening him absolutely rip it, there was no way any act could follow the god mc.......great show overall, there were even sum dime pieces in the house...........all in all, a dope show, best one i been too this year.......