Subterranean Homesick News: Live: Aceyalone and DJ Ztrip

My taste in music is vast and at times perplexing. A perfect example of this is the show I went to last Tuesday. It was my first entirely hip-hop/house show and I must say it was an interesting expierience. For someone whose comfort zone, as far as shows go, is seeing a seeing someone like Andrew Bird or Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, attending a house show was quite interesting.

The first two acts were clearly warm-up acts (they weren't even on the line up). After the second artist left the stage, my friend and I were uncertain about the rest of the night. We could only hope it would improve dramatically or else we would regret ever buying tickets. The thrid act was DJ Tricky T. He was ok and certainly an improvement. After a while his music became extremely repetitive and our hopes fell again. The next act to take the stage was the head liner; DJ Ztrip. At this point, our hearts sank because is seemed as though the artist we had come for, Aceyalone, wasn't going to be performing. We decided to stick it out and hope for the best. Ztrip played some enjoyable house and techno music. Up to this point, he was the best part of the evening.

After Ztrip played for some time, a man in a green shirt and large black sunglasses walked on to the stage; it was Aceyalone. From that point on the night was amazing. Aceyalone's songs flowed perfectly and went with every beat Ztrip gave him. After a few songs, Aceyalone left the stage and was replaced by Gift of Gab. If you've ever heard Twsita before, think of his fastest song and speed that up by about ten fold and you'll have Gift of Gab. I've never heard anyone speak that fast in my entire life. He even did several free styled songs at near inaudible speed. Eventually Gift of Gab left the stage as well and Ztrip did a few more songs by himself. Ztrip eventually took a break and another unannounced act took the stage. I'm not sure what his was, but it was just one guy playing the drums. He turned out to be quite entertaining. Ztrip rejoined him and threw down some beats for the drummer to play along to. The last part of the night was an extravagant finale consisting of all the acts from Tricky T on. The stage, which hadn't been full at any time during the night because there weren;t really any bands, was exploding with music and stage presence. With two fabulous rappers, two DJs and a drummer, it was simply exploding beats mixed with

flowing poetry and heart thumping bass; an intense and amazing expierience.