On Sunday June 11th, I had the privilege to see The Legendary Roots crew SHUT IT DOWN at Prospect Park in Brooklyn. The show started at 7:30 with Sahr Ngaujah (lead actor/singer of the Broadway show Fela!), and when we showed up at 8 at the entrance the police told everyone it was over capacity, it was too many people and they wouldn't let us in. Now I've been a huge fan of the Roots ever since I was living in New Jersey right across the bridge from Illadelph. These cats are living legends!! Over capacity?! Fuck that. We hopped the fence (ended up cutting my wrist and bleeding a little bit) and made our way to the middle of the crowd. This has to be the best performance I have ever seen, their stage presence, breath control, and energy is amazing. Black Thought is a lyrical machine when he spits, just when you think he's about to run out of breath he fires more ammunition to the crowd. Add that to the clarity of his vocals and you can't help but make the screwface in awe. Their tuba player, cleverly named Tuba Gooding Jr. was running on stage from left to right, jumping off speakers, and dancing while playing the tuba. Anyone who plays an instrument can tell you that you need to have good lungs and be in shape for that (consider the weight of a tuba...now consider running and jumping with it while playing.) The genius that is ?uestlove was mind blowing and inspiring to finally see live, production wise he's one of my biggest influences. Just from listening to The Roots and reading his interviews I've gained knowledge on dynamics, mic techniques, and mixing tricks. I swear I broke my neck 5 times during the show. Anyway...I could go on for hours, but I video taped a couple of songs so check them out below. Excuse some of the shakiness and the camera going out of focus at some points, I was grooving and so were the people around me. Can you blame me?
Oh yea, the cat in the red fitted is Kweli! BK MC!
Special appearance from hip hop pioneers Nice & Smooth. FRESH!
