CMJ: Saturday

News Article
Pitchfork
October 26, 2008
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Photos by Francis Chung ; Above: David Banner

David Banner is more interested in entertainment than authenticity, which made him an odd man out at last night's stop of the second annual Hip Hop Live! Tour. He has a social conscience, but in a way that blends the sacred and the profane. The first opening act, un-Google-able Atlanta comer B.O.B. , complained about "ringtone rappers", rhymed "rap" with "crap", and picked up the guitar for a sophomoric love ballad even Jack Johnson would've tossed back into the Pacific; the second opener, North Carolina conscious crew Little Brother , mocked the T-Pain voice and playfully rapped a bit of a Young Jeezy track as a matter of course during an otherwise fairly rousing set. Banner made the obligatory (and still hair-raising) speeches about the prospect of a black president, calling ours "the most relevant generation in motherfucking history"-- suck it, Brokaw!-- but Election Day was still a week and a half away. There was more pressing shit to worry about.


Like whether or not Banner was going to fall off the balcony railings. The Mississippi rapper and producer has been touted as the next big star since before he had a label, and what he lacks in commercial appeal he definitely makes up for in star quality and effort to please (an all too rare combination). A few songs showed Banner's love of MTV-style mosh-rock, culminating in a short "Smells Like Teen Spirit" sample/cover; "Suicide Doors", from Banner's disappointing 2008 album The Greatest Story Ever Told , came with the necessary UGK tribute (they appear on the album version) but quickly turned into something that was more "Buzz Bin" than BET. Banner was at his best, though, as he threw his 6' 3", 230-pound frame all around the 2,100-person venue, spouting ridiculously raunchy shit like "A Girl" (sample lyric: "Do you like it when I grab your neck? And squeeze it till your face turn blue?") even as he danced with a totally grown-up woman in the back section. The raw homophobic humor in his version of Lil Wayne's Banner-produced "La La" at least called attention to an actual political issue, which is more than Little Brother accomplished with jokes about how Bush voters probably got 600 on their SAT.


By the time Banner climbed up to that balcony, he'd already tripped backwards once over a monitor, so we knew he was working without a net. Through energetic, ferociously entertaining performances of "Lollipop"-sampling "Shawty Say", a "rock version" of "9MM", and Greatest Story single "Get Like Me", he never fell. Before performing his biggest hit, "Play", from 2005's Certified , Banner asked a woman in front whether he should say "body" or "pussy". New York is "a real cultural city," he said, "[and] I don't want to offend anyone." "Pussy" it was.
Talib Kweli [Nokia Theatre; midnight]


Talib Kweli , in contrast to Banner, was better than Top 40 hip-hop only in the same way late-1990s roots rock was "better" than late-1990s Top 40 pop. "Let's hear it for real hip-hop music," the Brooklyn rapper announced at one point. "I still can't believe he could spit out all those lyrics so fast," I overheard one guy saying afterward. Kweli performed with the same highly proficient big band as the rest of the Hip Hop Live! acts, the Rhythm Roots All Stars, whose multiple percussionists helped give a Latin-flavored funk feel to the evening. On "Give 'Em Hell", from last year's Eardrum , Kweli raised the never-before-asked question of "how they know" where we go when we die; the baseball-capped white guys grinding on their girlfriends seemed to really like it when he did Bob Marley's "Waiting in Vain" before Eardrum slow jam "Hot Thing".


Kweli brought out a host of guests from his Blacksmith label-- unfortunately not including Jean Grae-- but after he had his Idle Worship side project do the awful dance-rap number "Black Snake Moan", so few people cheered that Kweli started practically begging us for some kind of reaction, any reaction. Even a Sarah Palin mention in a freestyle wasn't enough to keep him from having to ask, more than once, whether we were still awake. I was trying, dude! Finally Kweli played his Kanye West-produced near-classic "Get By", from 2002 solo debut Quality , and I could get back to listening to guys who don't necessarily rap fast, but have humor, originality, and showmanship.