Review: ‘Superstars Of Hip Hop’ Ft. @BustaRhymes @methodman @therealredman

Pho­to­graphy by Shar­jeel Ahmed 

Novem­ber 2^nd saw the Super­stars of Hip Hop event at Ham­mer­smith Apollo fea­tur­ing Hip Hop legends Busta Rhymes, Meth­od Man and Red­man. It’s always dodgy ter­rit­ory when artists who made their name in their young­er days return to per­form­ing, look at Jodeci’s dis­astrous Wemb­ley per­form­ance earli­er this year for example! The crowd was a real mixed bunch, high­light­ing the uni­ver­sal appeal and cros­sov­er poten­tial of good qual­ity hip hop.

The first treat of the even­ing came in the unex­pec­ted form of sup­port act ‘Lady Leshurr’ who gave a crowd-pleas­ing per­form­ance that belied her new­comer status. One to watch.

Meth­od Man and Red­man kicked off the main event quickly dis­pelling any doubts as to wheth­er they were past their prime. Per­form­ing their hip hop clas­sics, such as ‘A‑Yo’ and ‘Da Rock­wilder’ they worked the crowd expertly. Their deliv­ery was on top form, spit­ting with the kind of per­fect flow and tim­ing that made them super­stars all those years ago.

They took the audi­ence way back to 1994 per­form­ing Wu Tang Clan’s ‘M.E.T.H.O.D. Man’, which sent the crowd wild as did ‘Da Good­ness’. It was evid­ent that the chem­istry between the two per­formers is some­thing ser­i­ously spe­cial, the way the bounced off each oth­er dur­ing the per­form­ance made the exper­i­ence all the more intense and solid­i­fied their status as legends and their right to be billed as super­stars of hip hop. The per­form­ance was of such good qual­ity it could have eas­ily been ten or twenty years ago, these rap­pers have lost NOTH­ING with age.

After a DJ set by 1Xtra’s Ace and a short audi­ence MC com­pet­i­tion the head­line act, Hip Hop legend Busta Rhymes, walked onto the stage like a cham­pi­on with the kind of ‘swag­ger’ many artists can only dream of pos­sess­ing. With enough gold chains slung round his neck to sink a battle­ship he went straight in, his trade­mark aggress­ive deliv­ery still as present as ever, per­haps more so even than in his young­er days. Unfor­tu­nately his low, gravely voice was dis­tor­ted at times through the sound sys­tem and this took away from the per­form­ance somewhat.

He per­formed hits such as Ante Up, Dan­ger­ous and Make It Clap as well as recent hit ‘#Twerkit’, an expec­ted crowd pleas­er. Unlike Meth­od Man and Redman’s per­form­ance, it was clear we were watch­ing an artist who was not at his peak, his massive pres­ence lim­it­ing his move­ment and per­form­ance , it was left to his mic man and DJ to do a lot of the leg work in work­ing the crowd. For­tu­nately for Busta, his status as a legend is so firmly con­creted by his back cata­logue and pre­vi­ous ground break­ing per­form­ances that he doesn’t need to exert him­self too much to please the crowd and give a sat­is­fy­ing performance.

Over­all the night was a great exper­i­ence and a real trip down Hip Hop memory lane with Meth­od Man and Red­man deliv­er­ing bey­ond expect­a­tion and Busta Rhymes ful­filling his duty. Any hip hop fan should make every effort to see Meth and Red live before the day comes when they hang up their micro­phones for good, these two embody the required vibe, becom­ing hip hop per­son­i­fied for the short time they’re on stage, I feel I could watch them per­form every week for the rest of my life and nev­er get bored, that’s how good they are.

Micky Roots

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Micky Roots

Micky roots is one of the edit­ors of I am hip hop magazine, a pure hip hop head and visu­al artist he brings his strong know­ledge of hip hop, social con­scious­ness & polit­ic­al con­cern to No Bounds.

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