Lyrics Born at The Crystal Ballroom

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Edan and Prefuse 73? Cancelled. Moms and dads trying to be cool by bringing their kids to a hip hop concert? Present. My mood? A bit crappy. I had heard a lot of good things about the two opening acts and was really excited to see them, but after learning that they had cancelled I had a feeling that the show might lose some of its luster.

The Boom-Bap Project was tapped to hold the spot down until it was time for Lyrics Born, and I’ve got to say, they repped Seattle to the fullest, but no matter how hard they tried to get the crowd worked up it just seemed that the real heads were the only ones that were interested in hearing them do their thing. DJ Scene held it down first on the ones and twos. He was showing the crowd how to rock well with some seriously classic hip hop. I’m talking about Afrika Bambatta, Grandmaster Flash, EPMD, and Sugarhill Gang type $#!%. Then the rest of the crew came out. Karim and Destructo held their set down and repped the Northwest Hip Hop scene like it was going to die in a matter of hours. They had heads nodding and some of the bodies rocking. Not to down them, but they were trying to bring some life to a crowd that mostly was there to see Lyrics Born. I’ll give them props though, because they gave a lot of themselves to the crowd and dropped regular freestyles that showed their lyrical dexterity, humor, flow and wit. They managed to keep the crowd facing forward and gave them the warm up lap that they would need for the main event.

You know that feeling that you get right before you get a gift you’ve been waiting on waiting for a long time? Everyone that was at this concert had that feeling as soon as they knew that Lyrics Born was about to hit the stage. He wasted no time as soon as he hit the stage, going straight into “Hello” as his opener. LB never wasted a minute from his spot on stage bringing that serious Bay Area funk/hip hop to Portland. He seemed concerned that the crowd wouldn’t be able to keep up with his funked out party, but the Crystal Ballroom answered the call time and time again. Instead of having a DJ with him, Lyrics Born decided to keep it real by having a live backing band to play the songs. It worked out, giving the show a sense of musical legitimacy that I know some people don’t like to afford to rap music. He also brought Joyo Velarde (the vocalist that can be heard on many of his and other Quannum projects). As the only female on stage she held it down in the All Boys’ Club that was the crew on stage, because even when LB would be letting the band do their thing on jam breaks, she would make sure that the crowd was always in the mix. They were so in the mix that some of the aforementioned moms were trying to dance with cats that were twenty years their junior, and no matter how many times said cats would step away from them so that they could watch the show because they had to do a review for it, they just kept coming. Add awkward to the list of emotions that I was now feeling.

Now the show was tight and all, LB was doing his thing and kicking jams from Later That Day, Same !@#$, Different Day, and his Latryx records, but their were no moments of personal interaction with the crowd. He was all about partying and never really seemed to want to just take a moment out to chill and let the audience get to know him. Maybe he really is just that funky and all he does is do the damn thing on stage, but it would have been nice to just have him break it down for a minute and wax philosophical for a minute. He may have just been worried that the crowd would’ve just gone to sleep. It also would have been ill to see Lateef the Truthspeaker come out so that they could have done more Latyrx joints and their collaboration “The Last Trumpet”, but all in all the show displayed the passion and skill of real underground hip-hop that you won’t hear on the radio or see on MTV. The closer was “Calling Out.” If you don’t know what song that is, just watch the Diet Coke commercial with Adrian Brody. It was a funky ending to one of the funkiest shows that I have ever been to. I guess Lyrics Born heard that George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic were coming to town.

- Abraham Anania
KPSU Editorial Team