My review of N.O.R.E & Big Daddy Kane - Shephards Bush Empire, London 09/12/2004

[On The Edge of Insanity]

This gig is part of a series of gigs at the Shephards Bush Empire at the moment where newer artists and their musical idols perform back to back. The idea itself is pretty dope, and although most of them were rock bands, they had a get at least one hiphop night, as this was it.

I got in the venue pretty early, and managed to get a good position around the second row of standing from the front. The artists that came on early were all basically Rocafella's attempts to get some of their rnb singers some shine, and so we were "treated" to Rell and Nicole Wray back to back, which I have to say wasn't exactly what I have envisioned as the support acts to such a gig. DJ Clark Kent was in the house, but only span for like ten minutes between those two, and seemed to spend most of the evening standing arms crossed nodding his head, which considering the fact that he was billed on the ticket seemed a little strange.

After some more DJing, N.O.R.E came out on stage with a whole posse of people, Beanie Sigel being the only one recognisable to me. He came out to one of the Neptunes tracks off his last album, and then proceeded to go through all his hit singles in a 20min set. "Ayo Me Canto" (or whatever the fuck its called) got a pretty good reception, but" Superthug" and "Nuthin" were the joints that really got the crowd moving the most as expected. N.O.R.E was actually pretty good live, although a couple of the tracks did suffer from his vocals already being on the tracks, making it sound rather like he was karoaking over the top of his own lyrics, but overall he put on a good performance. I was a little disappointed Beanie Sigel did nothing apart from finish N.O.R.E lines though.

About ten minutes later BDK's DJ came out onto the stage, proceeded to rip through seven or eight old school hiphop classics before bringing out the man, the legend that is Big Daddy Kane. He came out to one of the tracks off his first album that I always forget the name of, and all the hiphop heads in the crowd were going mad. It was quite funny, by the end of his first song, all the girls that had been at the front for N.O.R.E's performance had been replaced by straight hiphop heads trying to get as close as possible to BDK. He went through all of his classics, getting great crowd participation on "No Half Steppin" and "Raw" in particular, and causing massive hysteria on "Warm It Up Kane" when he jumped into the crowd and proceeded to perform the entire song amongst the crowd. When he got back on stage after that the crowd responded better than ever, appreciating that Kane felt he was at one with the crowd. After finishing his set he bought N.O.R.E back out, everyone hugged, Kane left to a rousing ovation, and then N.O.R.E did his parts from CNNs "T.O.N.Y", before leaving the stage.

Overall, I thought this was a great night of hiphop, I'll admit to not being N.O.R.E's biggest fan, and I was mainly there to see BDK, but I thought the whole show (apart from the rubbish support acts) was a very entertaining experience. BDK took it back to the old school, and definitely showed up many newer hiphop acts as far as putting together a live show. You really did feel as if you were in the presence of a living hiphop legend, and its good to see he still has it. This concert had me fiending for a new BDK album, and hopefully on the resulting tour he will come back to the UK, because I would definitely go to see him again.

Pics:


N.O.R.E



Big Daddy Kane


Big Daddy Kane & Clark Kent

[mauzip]

today i heard big daddy kane is gonna perform in holland also. i really wanna go

[Bramsterdam (see ya)]

props man, another good review which I enjoyed from you

BDK is the shiiiit, not a nore fan though

[Danté Williams]

Man, sounds dope! Nice review!

[On The Edge of Insanity]

today i heard big daddy kane is gonna perform in holland also. i really wanna go

Definitely go man. You won't be disappointed.