Rock the Bells 2011 live review.

This past Saturday I attended the “Rock the Bells’ concert at Governors Island, New York.  The New York edition of the series had a lot of anticipation because of the slew of awesome East Coast emcees that included Nas, Wu-Tang Clan, Mos Def, Talib Kweli and Mobb Deep just to name a few. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to catch every single set, but I managed to check out most of them.

One thing that I took away was that hip-hop is a genre that doesn’t translate well in a live setting. For example GZA performed most of “Liquid Swords” and the results did not come close to the studio recording. His laid back and intricate flow came out flat and at times overwhelmed by the sound system. GZA also skipped some of his lines because he appeared a little winded; can’t blame the guy since he writes very dense verses that are hard to recite very loudly. Fortunately RZA came in to inject some adrenaline to the set by popping out to do his humorous verse of “4^th Chamber”.  

Ghostface and Raekwon went through “Only Built for Cuban Linx” but with frequent interruptions and rants that killed the vibe for a lot of people. Most left to go and see Nas’ set of “Illmatic” which was decent, it included a DJ battle between DJ Premier and Pete Rock that was unnecessary and disappointing. Rather than all the filler side shows, Nas should have just performed his debut from front to back to avoid stagnation.

The best set of the festival undoubtedly belonged to Mobb Deep. The Queens duo tore up the stage; Havoc and Prodigy performed with an incredibly consistent street swagger and liveliness. Mobb Deep blasted through their discography with no breaks, pauses or any kind of interruptions. “Quiet Storm” and “Shook Ones” closed off their segment and never had those songs sounded better than during that performance, it was something worth witnessing. However, the worst set of the night belonged to Slaughter House, the collective was very lame, disorganized and off putting, especially when Crooked I gave us an embarrassing freestyle. Overall, “Rock the Bells” was a good but not great, my expectations where a little too high but how could they not have been with such a loaded lineup.