Naughty By Nature – February 7th 2016 – South Side Music Hall – Dallas, TX
The Grammy Award winning hip hop crew, Naughty By Nature, responsible for some huge hits during what was arguably one of the best decades of the genre took people on a trip down memory lane, performing not only their own material but also reminding us of some of the other greats.
Celebrating 25 years as a group Treach, Vin Rock, & DJ Kay Gee took the stage to rapturous applause – this was a party and the trio was prepared to send everyone in the venue home happy.
Arguably their biggest hit, O.P.P got things off to a popular start, Treach knows the figure he cuts on stage – once the shirt is off and the tattoos blazin, the MC works the crowd, pouring Hennessy into the mouths of people in the front row, posing for selfies and fist bumping those who decided to blaze up. Between himself and his two Naughty By Nature comrades, they’ve got a well-prepared live show together more than two decades on. As you can see above, they also had a film crew in tow getting footage for a documentary that’s tentatively scheduled for a late year release.
The crowd was diverse in ages – most being mid to late teens during their early 90’s reign and arguably the most fun & prolific era of Hip-Hop.
They did a tremendous version of God Is Us that they recently shot a gorgeous video for featuring Queen Latifah, that’s the first single from the as yet untitled new EP that they currently have a Kickstarter campaign for that you can donate to here. Backers can get tattoos with Treach, shoot pool with Vin Rock, or play basketball with Kay Gee, among other rewards
After the show I had the pleasure of sitting down with all three members of Naughty By Nature for a candid and inspiring look at their legacy for an episode of our weekly podcast TrickyKid Radio. You can download that episode for free by clicking here.
Good time with some great legends and looking forward to seeing/hearing the fruits of their labor by year’s end.
Distinguished Lecture Series with The GZA of the Wu-Tang Clan – March 2nd 2016 – University of North Texas – Denton, TX
Gary Grice – aka The GZA who after five Wu-Tang albums and six solo records has put his money where his mouth is by taking his interest in the cosmos to the class room. He’s been working on a new album called Dark Matter & has a new project called Science Genius B.A.T.T.L.E.S. & educational reform program that stands for Bring Attention to Transforming Teaching, Learning and Engagement in Science.
His ambitions of late have taken him to lecture at esteemed universities across the country testing his experimental science education program.
As a long time fan of Hip-Hop and the Wu-Tang Clan and his solo LP 1995’s Liquid Swords being my favorite I was excited for the opportunity to hear him speak as part of this season’s Distinguished Lecture Series at UNT in Denton.
While the infatuation with quantum theory and cosmology is new, the Brooklyn-based wordsmith has always incorporated intellectual pursuits in his rhymes.
While it’s sexier to hear it from someone who seems more like your peer and someone that you respect than a square looking, forgettable professor, the GZA offers in the way very little outside of simple novelty. The real benefit is that at the very least it gets the students thinking about this.
To this crowd, it didn’t matter one bit. They in fact were only here for the novelty and by attaching themselves to this it somehow reflected their station in life under the best possible terms.
The could care less what he said and how well he said it, they just wanted to say they saw it and post about it on social media. Proof of this and the most excruciating part of the evening was the Q&A session.
After he delivered 45 mins of mostly incoherency – here come the crowd of mostly white, privileged hipsters and of course the first question is “Will you play me at a game of chess?” Now – would I personally like to play the GZA, someone that has attached himself to the game his entire career, at chess? FUCK YES I would, but would I embarrass myself by lobbying this request in public at a lecture that’s supposedly about physics? The person asking it too, you could tell thought like the others before him, that he was the first one ever to think to ask him that question that he surely gets daily.
The rest that followed were somehow even more embarrassing with each question, which were increasingly just simple autograph requests, taking advantage that he would now be a total dick to say no, deflated he would agree and I almost started to feel sorry for him.
It reminded me of when I saw David Byrne lecture on sound architecture in Brooklyn and when it opened to questions they were all about his bicycle.
But hey, at least that one was at a bar, THIS WAS AT A UNIVERSITY. Not one question was on topic, not one.
They saved the worst for last as of course the last three questions were about that dickhead scam artist Martin Shkreli that looks like a Monchichi that you keep hearing about for being total garbage and buying the mythical Once Upon a Time in Shaolin – the Wu-Tang LP where exactly one copy exists.
It’s all they wanted to talk about & I loved it when the GZA sobered them up when he told them they he’s never actually heard the LP and probably knows less than you do about it.
The students asking the questions were even regurgitating CNN-style verbage by referring to Shkreli as the Pharma Bro in their questions like their the ones that thought of it. Garbage in garbage out as it were.
Unable to mask my seething disgust any longer I heard myself say out loud when it was announced this would be the final question, “Someone please ask him a FUCKING SCIENCE question” – the row behind me heard it to. It was uncomfortable and I’m quite sure they thought I was in the wrong.
