Hip-hop live and kicking at CMJ '08

By: Stephen Ortiz

Posted: 10/22/08

This week, The Daily Campus Focus Editor Stephen Ortiz will be reporting from New York City on the College Music Journal Marathon Festival. Each night he will select one venue to highlight.

NEW YORK - In 2006, Nas released "Hip-Hop Is Dead," a declaration on the deceased state of hip-hop music, but last night's intimate showcase at the Blender Theater proved quite the opposite.

Headlining the evening in just one of the hundreds of performances given on CMJ 08's opening night was rap duo The Cool Kids.

Earlier in the day, the two were part of a panel discussion at New York University's Kimmel Center with former A Tribe Called Quest member Q-Tip on the current hip-hop renaissance.

"I rather you take that song and share it with all of your high school friends so when we come out to play a show, it sells out," said Chuck Inglish about Internet piracy during the panel. "I'm not going to see that 99 cents."

Despite a crowd-pleasing performance full of fan favorites, the biggest surprise of the evening's four acts came in opener Free Sol.

The hip-hop band from Memphis, Tenn., was reminiscent of the Gym Class Heroes of old (you know, before they sold out) in their half-hour tour de force.

The group, made up of lyricist Free Sol, keyboardist Premo D'anger, drummer Kickman Teddy and guitarist E Ives, played a set made up of crowd pumping hip-hop jams ("Bigger Than That") to some tracks that could be labeled capable of inciting mosh pits.

Sol dropped rhymes with high intensity and precision, at one point yelling out in their set, "I am hip-hop."

Rapper Skillz built on Free Sol's momentum with a fiery set that had almost the entire crowd participating in his call and response.

Where Free Sol tapped into Gym Class Heroes, Skillz and his partial band (he had a DJ and a drummer in tow) can be compared to the likes of The Roots' raw sound.

The highlight of their performance was a song titled "Hip-hop Died," a look into who's to blame for the genre's death, climaxing at the realization that we are all at fault.

Canadian indie rock duo The Carps rounded out the evening's bill.

The set began with some technical difficulties inciting when the singer/drummer Jahmal Tonge stopped the first song due to mic problems, inciting calls and boos from the small crowd. Once they were resolved, the audience was treated to an odd yet high energy mix of electronic rock and hard hitting percussion.