Live Review: The Coup w/ Guests, July 9, 2010, Vancouver, B.C.
July 13th, 2010 Filed under: Reviews - Live by admin
(Photo – Jamie Sands)
Live Review - The Coup w/ Guests
Friday, July 9, 2010
The Biltmore, Vancouver, B.C.
In the early nineties a movement began in to ally the forces of Hip Hop against the forces of evil. No longer would MCs use their words to perpetuate centralized tyranny, consumer greed and sexism. No longer would hip hop beatmasters put out funkless un-musical junk. The vanguard of this movement came in the form of the Oakland based Hip Hop crew The Coup.
Boots Riley and Pam the Funktress form the core of the current Coup, and they’ve been relentlessly pumping out funky beats and clever political rhymes for well over a decade. Anybody who knows anything about conscious Hip Hop knows The Coup. Pam the Funktress lays out the beats and Boots Riley provides the rhymes. Other members have come and gone (one of whom is dead), but the core of the movement remains strong.
Some highlights of The Coup’s reign of terror include coming up with an album cover showing the World Trade Center exploding and Boots Riley pressing a button on a guitar tuner as a detonator—for an album that was due out September 2001. Their label pulled the cover in the resultant outrage. Over the years they managed to thoroughly offend right wing America; one columnist said Riley “belongs in a capitalism-free cave in Tora Bora, spewing his “poetry” around an al Qaeda campfire” (Michelle Malkin)
The Coup ally themselves with Southern black power quasi-Marxist Hip Hop artists Dead Prez, and Riley has also joined forces with Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello to create the offshoot band Street Sweeper Social Club, who toured with Nine Inch Nails in 2009. Their mission is to spread consciousness and defiance through music until young minds have been freed and the revolution is complete.
So far The Coup’s musical reign of musical terror has penetrated every corner of the United States and has begun gaining followers internationally. Just last week they managed to cross the border into Canada. The first thing they did was take the Biltmore Cabaret by force with a gang of like-minded rap-fiends to propagandize their anti-corporate sounds. Abort Magazine happened to be in attendance.
The Coup took the stage around 10:30 and their rabid fans took to the dance floor. While the Coup’s albums feature Pam the Funktress’ infectious beats, The Coup now tours as a live band. That’s refreshing—a Hip Hop show with real live Funk. Boots dressed up like a real G for the even, done up in a sharp tan suit with a perfectly formed oval fro, and he was supported by a strong trio—guitar, bass and drums, with Pam jumping in to support on the odd track just adding hype and singing along.
They had the crowd jumping in no time, belting out solid numbers from their early albums Kill the Landlord and Genocide and Juice. The Biltmore faithful grooved and bounced, hands in the air, singing along from time to time. It was a drunken, sweaty and joyous crowd, lubed up by the Biltmore’s draft beer and dry cider. They loved every minute of it, by the end of the night fists were in the air, singing along to such gems as “Five Million Ways to Kill a CEO” and “20,000 Gun Salute”. The highlight of the night seemed to be the single from their new album Pick a Bigger Weapon “Laugh/Love/Fuck”. It goes “I’m here to laugh, love, fuck and drink liquor / and help the revolution come quicker”, and everyone sang it out loud, because it was that kind of night.
This night showed in no uncertain terms that The Coup is still on the vanguard after almost two decades in the Hip Hop game. Boots’ ingenious lyrics remain clever and catchy and their anti-capitalist message actually seems more and more urgent and important over time. In a genre where musicianship itself isn’t usually high on the list, The Coup is playing with a funky band rather than rapping over prerecorded beats, and the musical content on their records would make even the most conservative geezer bob his head. That’s a sure sign of the alchemical power of music—to make music about serious, dire situations.
By The Rambler
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