Tuesday, March 31st 2009
Shows: Miscellaneous
Antiquiet’s Paid Dues 2009 Highlights
The fourth annual incarnation of indie hip-hop festival Paid Dues took place at the Nos Events Center in San Bernardino Saturday, featuring crushing appearances by some of the industry’s fiercest and hardest working names including Brother Ali, Living Legends and Atmosphere. The pay-it-or-leave $15 parking and $10 beers didn’t do much for the indie-rap spirit of the event, but a barrage of intense, enthusiastic performances kept the 5,000-plus crowd roaring till the lights went up.Â
We put together a video clip of the day’s highlights, including performances, interviews and more:
A raging inferno on the inbound freeway from Los Angeles that was, at one point, a Carl’s Jr. truck tripled the drive time for many concertgoers, meaning missed early sets by Cage and Blu & Exile. We caught up with Cage after his set, however, and while we worked a few comments out of the notoriously difficult interviewee I couldn’t help but notice that the guy looked about three bad days out of a casket. Dude needs a hug.
Cypress Hill frontman B-Real delivered a hybrid blend of new track medleys and older Cypress blaze anthems (aided by the impressive Young De) before kicking some wisdom down to Antiquiet about working with Damian Marley and his all-time favorite buds. Slaughterhouse made a massive first impression in their West Coast debut with a bloody butcher aprons, prison jumpsuits and a machine-gun delivery like Onyx meets ODB-era Wu-Tang. The collective of Joe Budden, Royce Da’ 5’9″, Joell Ortiz and Crooked I crushed it, earning hundreds- if not thousands- of enthusiastic new fans at the show.
Brother Ali was far and away the night’s most valuable player- and certainly the most popular, delivering a surgically flawless set for a wildly enthusiastic crowd before taking the stage with headliner Atmosphere to give Slug some vocal support.
Grouch & Eli delivered a spitfire set of their own before joining up with Living Legends later in the evening for a crowd-favorite performance that ran through a solid chunk of fan favorites from the band’s illustrious catalog, including Purple Kush and The Gathering:
I didn’t learn until after the fact that Kansas City’s Tech N9ne reportedly lip-synced through his set, a disappointing fact (?) that eliminates the praise I’d planned to offer here. His false performance is a bone of contention that needs breaking immediately; the fact that such a fabricated performance was allowed to dilute the otherwise boiling waters of sickness that was the Paid Dues ’09 lineup is a disgrace. It may be a regular occurrence in the pop world, but it’s an unthinkable act of in the purist landscape of indie rap. You can call it snobbish- I call it true dedication to the craft. In all fairness, however, the audience didn’t seem to care too much that they were getting the Britney Spears treatment. They came for a show, and playing pretend or not, Tech N9ne delivered.
By a sharp quality/authenticity contrast, headliner Atmosphere closed out the night, enjoying a little limelight after pounding stone for 15 years to finally get the recognition they deserve. Slug and Ant have finally begun receiving the radio play and Top 10 Billboard chart placement that lesser rappers have dominated forever, and both artist and audience were there to celebrate. Despite spending nearly 8 hours on their feet by that point, the crowd was louder than ever, singing every syllable with hands raised the entire time.
Brother Ali was welcomed back to the stage with roaring approval as he stepped in as Slug’s hype man, making a lyrical dream team far more compelling than what you’ll find on a 50 Cent record.
Festival organizers Guerilla Union and Murs deserve massive credit for pulling off an impressive four Paid Dues events so far, exposing the SoCal scene to proper hip-hop. With any luck, word will spread next year, and if it’s not held in the middle of the fucking desert, and Paid Dues could very well become the Coachella of hip-hop.
Check out our Paid Dues 2009 photos, and some more on Antiquiet’s Facebook Page.
Just a note. Tech does not and has not ever lip-synched. I’m assuming you’re referring to the latimes blog.
Tech raps over his vocals. I’ve been to some shows where his mic was not as loud as it should have been and the vocal track was almost as loud as his own vocals.
I myself am critical of the practice…totally NOT hip hop.
But it’s certainly not lip-synching.
tech n9ne did not lip sync his shit duude! i was at paid dues he raps over his songs, you would understand if other rappers moved around on stage as much as tech does the niggas human everyone runs outta breath but thats when kutt and krizz jump in on the lyrics, ive been to kansas city back to los angeles to see tech perform, people that run there mouth about shit like this is why everyone has HATERS! fuck em’
Fantastic to see the love being spread in these posts! Hip-hop for life!