Hip-Hop.com

Shabazz Palaces invites an interesting crowd. The duo, who performed last night at Yoshi’s in San Francisco before departing on an European tour in a few weeks, seems to straddle that line between indie rock and hip-hop only if you look at their audience, because their music is doesn’t sound like rock at the least bit. The avant-garde duo of Palaceer Lazaro (aka Ishmael “Ish” Butler) and percussionist Tendai Mariare has pieced together a theme of bluster, black power, african diaspora, jarring beats and psychedelia, and perhaps that last part is what brought together the two different scenes.

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Lupe Fiasco took his stage show to Oakland last night, and we have a set of pics thanks to Grady Brannan, who vividly captures Lupe’s tremendous and growing stage presence.

We invited our photographers/buddies Madelynn and Amari Kenoly, who last covered Rock The Bells for us, to the last-minute-booked Mos Def show earlier this month and this is what he came back with—a stunning black and white set that covered the artist soon-to-be-known-as Yasiin and openers Jahi and Los Rakas.

Erykah Badu is a woman of many faces, and she has names for each of them–Medulla Oblongata, Analog Girl in a Digital World, and Sarah Bellem. Tonight’s featured persona is DJ Lowdown Loretta Brown, and as the name implies, there was plenty of funk and soul to go around tonight. At Ruby Skye, on the most marijuaniest of days, she played a DJ set that seemed to move from style to style with a heaping of classic soul to glue everything together. read more »

An energetic Lauryn Hill thrilled fans as she performed in concert that at times seemed more like a sing-along than solo performance. Ms. Hill brought her Moving Target: Intimate Playdate Series tour to a sold-out Warfield Theater in Downtown San Francisco, where she was greeted by eager and enthusiastic fans, and returned the energy in a two hour set that saw Ms. Hill become more and more animated. read more »

So in 2011, weird is fresh. For De La Soul, it might be the perfect chance for a renaissance. For the past decade, it seemed they needed to mold and remold themselves to fit the current mood in hip-hop, which had no room for the whimsy and quirky attitude that made their name. And now—now they don’t need to. Thanks to timely Gorillaz cameos, they don’t even need to make records to be hot. Maybe that’s why they seem to be more comfortable than they have been for a long while? read more »

The original beat box extraordinaire Doug E. Fresh touched down at Yoshi’s last night. Slick Rick, his most notable partner in his 26 years in the business wasn’t there but he deftly kept the crowd hyped in an hour long set that made everyone happy despite arriving late (due to plane delays, the DJ explains, while he played a steady stream of R&B and rap from the early 80′s).

While older rappers shy away from the idea that their audience is old, Doug E. embraced it, referring to his people as “35 and better.” But while others might shy away from age to avoid the perception of irrelevance, Doug E. confronted it directly. “You know ‘Teach Me How to Dougie?’”, he asks while the DJ plays the Cali Swag District track. “I’m Dougie! Doug-E. That’s me!” he says, before dancing every variation of it he knows. read more »

Naughty by Nature swept into San Francisco on Thursday night, playing at the legendary jazz club Yoshi’s in the middle of the Fillmore District. There was a notable lack of kiddies in the crowds, as you would imagine a show for an act that haven’t (yet) released an album in almost 8 years. But what they make up for in age was skill befitting of a 20-year career. This crew from Jersey are professionals in the craft of hip-hop, able to move a quiet crowd into a frenzied mob in a matter of moments. They showed off their years of experience of knowing what buttons to push, and they jammed them like it was Street Fighter II. read more »