Live Review: R.A. The Rugged Man w/ Brass Tackz and guests, November 16th, Vancouver, BC
November 19th, 2009 Filed under: Made In Canada, Reviews - Live, Uncategorized by admin
(Photo - Jamie Sands)
Live Review – R.A. The Rugged Man w/ Brass Tackz, Groundbreakers, Little T, Rhymists, and Reveal @ Monday Night Live
November 16, 2009,
The Modern, Vancouver BC
Monday night was live and rugged at The Modern in Gastown- another packed show cementing MNL’s spot as one of Vancity’s longest running and most popular nights. What works:
MNL proves that, living amongst us, there are still honest-to-god hotties that love rap and at least tolerate rappers. So just because your art forces you to spend all your money on boutique clothes that don’t match or fit doesn’t mean you have to court a janky weedhead with gum in her beard if you don’t want to. That’s right fellas, there are fly women out there who, while under the mysterious and demoralizing spell of hip hop, will let their butts be squeezed ad nauseum and might even buy you a drink after.
More importantly though, Monday Night Live, currently in the capable hands of young MC/promoter extraordinaire, Emotionz, provides the stage for a rotating caste of local talent, affording up and coming acts the opportunity to share bills with rap heavyweights like R.A. The Rugged Man, J-Live, Cunninlynguists, and countless others over the years. Vancouver’s own Groundbreakers were among the hungry milieu to touch the mic this night. Still pumped from the recent completion of their forthcoming album “From The Ground Up” the fresh-faced five, no strangers in the local scene, kicked a bomb set that fused contemporary hype and a hard nod to the golden era.
And speaking of new releases, this past Halloween marked the FREE online release of “The Outfit” by Brass Tackz. The gruesome union of Snak The Ripper, Evil Ebenezer, and Young Sin (plus D-Rec on the wheels) have been on tour with R.A., stopping at home in Van last night for Snak’s birthday. The trio fall evenly across a spectrum with Sin’s smooth, linear rhyming at one end and Snak’s delirious drainpipe sermons on the other. While Evil, who’s craziness hangs in the middle, strikes me as Brass Tackz’ foremost lyrical mastermind, mind you it was Snak (the birthday boy) taking showmanship to the next level. With face-melting flows, a voice like tearing manila paper, and “gonorrhea in my mouth” as he put it, Snak lived up to his title as The Ripper.
What doesn’t work: The Modern. It’s a nice enough club and everything, but try coming back in after having a cigarette (that the bouncers made you smoke across the street because the dessert crowd at the Chill Winston couldn’t hack y’all creeping by the window. Seriously). You’d think that, having successfully completed the original retinal scan, groin cupping, and mandatory $4 backpack check, your well earned stamp would accord you speedy re-entry into the the dry haven of bass and friends.. but this isn’t commercial drive, hippy. Be prepared to kick it in the rain, 3rd class citizen style, while everybody gets searched again at a DJ Screw pace: the sort of shit you’d expect at a pretty boy nightclub, but downright offensive to the spirit of hip hop.
And now ladies and gentlemen, the Monday night main event. In the black trunks, hailing from Suffolk County, Long Island, weighing in at at two armfuls of stones, the legendary dip-dip diverse socializer himself, R.A. The Rugged Man: peoples champ. He dropped some hay makers in the first round, including “Lessons” and his verse from “Chains”, that were pretty sweet, but no there was no knockout in this fight. Perhaps it was the throat infection he complained of early on, or the one hour of sleep they’d got the night before, or maybe his voice was still hoarse from putting Floyd Mayweather Jr. on well needed blast in that widely publicized interview recently. Whatever the case may be, R.A. spat pretty clean, but the whole set could’ve benefited from a louder mic and an adrenaline shot.
By Nigel Mojica
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