The last month or so has been nothing but great Mobb Deep-related news: Prodigy got out of jail, he and Havoc released that wonderful track “Dog Shit,” Prodigy’s book My Infamous Life came out, he dropped that EP, and dammit last night he finally reunited with Havoc on stage at the Best Buy Theater in NYC for their first show in over three years.
It’s safe to say that Mobb Deep’s music has been the personal soundtrack to many a hustler, stickup kid, Hennessy addict, or New York Hip Hop fan. I’m one of them. So you can imagine my happiness when I found out that not only was I going to see Mobb Deep, but Black Thought was the opening act and Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, and Cappadonna of Wu Tang were the performance just prior to Mobb’s. Good god, that’s rap shit at its finest right there.
Black Thought did his thing, obviously, and also brought out the rest of the Money Making Jam Boys (shout out to Riggs Morales who stayed blasting their shit to my inbox until I paid attention. Hope you have their mixtape!). Then DJ Stretch Armstrong came out for a surprisingly uneventful set. Maybe I was just restless because I wanted to see Wu. Fuck it.
I was leaning against the balcony railing at the theater watching clouds of weed smoke enter the air from the level below me and having some guy make love to my ribcage with his elbow while he was trying to spit game at a chick, who oddly enough was all on him then would talk wild reckless about him when he walked away. You know, the typical rap show. I don’t go to many shows anymore so I forget all about this experience. And gladly. But anyway, after a very long wait and a surprising appearance from Peter Rosenberg wearing a chain with some kind of wrestling-related adornment as big as his face (and all iced out), the Wu Tang guys finally hit the stage.
I just have to say this about a Wu performance in general: those guys are like grown ass kids, and it’s that element that makes them one of the best live shows in rap (besides their notably strong catalog of songs, obviously). They have fun when they perform. So many artists could take some notes from a Wu live show to improve their own. Cappadonna was damn near stepping in the name of love and doing the chickenhead dance.
It was a little bit like that. OK, that’s a slight exaggeration, but for real, it was amazing. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t stop laughing. Every now and then Ghostface would give him a run for his money, too. It was great. The crowd also went absolutely insane when they dropped “Shimmy Shimmy Ya.” Also peace to their DJ, who from a distance and in poor lighting looks exactly like Statik Selektah, who DJ’d that rather long set last night from an MPC. Nice.
But after years of waiting, Mobb Deep finally took the stage. They were backed by a live drummer, keyboard player, and bass guitarist, which was an interesting touch. At first I found it awkward to adjust to the sound, but by the end of the show I was loving it. They performed a very long set, you ain’t gotta tell me twice how many dope tracks they have, and brought out a small handful of special guests including Big Noyd (who was on stage the whole time), Raekwon, Alchemist (please note I went absolutely apeshit when “When You Hear That” got performed), and muthafuckin LIL KIM.
Yeah, let’s talk about Kim for a second. This is when the show really started to feel like I had a flashback to 1998 or something. She came out and ripped that “Quiet Storm” verse. Sure, she looks a little different nowadays (she had very long blonde hair that evening in a strapless mini dress that she did have to awkwardly keep pulling up….did she get her implants removed?), but she channeled some kind of older version of herself and spit her shit and walked off that stage leaving us in shock.
Please believe they performed all the good shit…”G.O.D. Pt. 3″ “Get Away” (see below video), “Drop a Gem On Em,” “Hold You Down” (with Alchemist of course) “Dog Shit,” and a bunch of others. All in front of a backdrop of a replica Queensbridge Houses door (address 41-15, ha). I wonder if Prodigy thought of that idea while he was locked up? It seems like one of those ideas.
The only even remotely bad thing I can say about the show is that some things felt out of place. Rosenberg hosting, for instance. He’s cool, that’s my dude, but it totally killed my 1999 flashback. It was like “heeeeeeeeey mad thugged out guys on stage, Wu Tang forever! YEAH! Oh, hey, there’s Rosenberg wearing an awkwardly large chain. MOBB DEEP! YEEEEEEAH!” It was just an awkward transition. I would have been happy with someone like Poison Pen hosting it. The other thing was that this was the show that I expected to be some straight NEW YORK SHIT. I mean dunn language, Shaolin’s finest, mad QB shout outs, fuckin quarter water at the bodega type grimey, NEW YORK SHIT. And for the most part it was. But I felt like the Black Thought/MMJB wasn’t the most appropriate opener, despite how talented they are. I just had this ideal of nothing but gritty New York street raps. That’s just me being a diehard Mobb fan and hence extra picky, though. Their performance was still solid.
All I’m going to say is that if you missed this show, you missed out. But what it showed me is that their breed of rap is alive and well, and with Prodigy back on the streets and reunited with Havoc and Co., I feel like there’s about to be a lot of new shit to come. And I’m looking forward to it.
And, in true UntitledType fashion, if you’d like to see somewhat shaky, blurry video footage from a distance of part of Wu and Mobb’s performances, check the below video:
Shout outs to Chop, Sucio Smash, Poison Pen, Illa Ghee, HowFresh, Dallas Penn, and the various others I ran into in the building last night.
