In the Grooves

Fugees, Spearhead, and more aim to rock Great Woods

by Roni Sarig

Who'd a thunk it: funny middle-aged white guy Dan Aykroyd brings us this summer's premier live rap show? Unlikely but true. House of Blues, the juke-joint-themed chain restaurant and venue established in 1992 by former Blues Brother Aykroyd with Hard Rock Café founder Isaac Tigrett and other partners, is sponsoring the 33-city Smokin' Grooves tour, which pulls into Great Woods in Mansfield this Monday.

That's not the end of the surprises. This gig also offers the best and most diverse line-up of contemporary black music in years: R&B/rap chart toppers the Fugees; boho-rap luminaries A Tribe Called Quest; conscious funk rappers Spearhead; hip-hop wild-styler Busta Rhymes; reggae royal family Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers; and perpetually blunted hardcore rappers Cypress Hill. Naturally it's being nicknamed "Hip-Hopalooza."

Smokin' Grooves was born as a sister tour of HOB's more characteristically rootsy Barnburner tour, which is taking on the road this summer Buddy Guy, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, and the Radiators. Together the tours draw a connection between the old-time African-American expression of the blues and current forms like rap and reggae. To illustrate the link between past and present, the Smokin' Grooves stage features a screen that, between sets, projects footage of influential black musicians like Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Funkadelic, and Bob Marley.

HOB, of course, is a rapidly expanding entertainment empire built around clubs, merchandising, radio shows, a record label, and a production company. With its focus on repackaging a sanitized, Disneyland version of the Jim Crow and Depression-era Blues Age, the chain clearly has little to do with the modern-day real life of blacks. And Tigrett deserves a hefty flogging for his ridiculous claim (in the tour's press release) that Smokin' Grooves "provides a taste of urban culture to cities that don't have a House of Blues venue." But if you can stomach the faux-inner-city/juke-joint look of the Smokin' Grooves stage (complete with graffiti, corrugated metal siding, and a chain-link fence), chances are the music will more than compensate for all the reconstructionist buffoonery.

The tour specializes in that rare breed of rapper who knows how to put on a great show. Whether through the live instrumentation of the Fugees and Spearhead or the freestyling of A Tribe Called Quest and Busta Rhymes, Smokin' Grooves spotlights rappers who -- like the old-school R&B showmen -- do more than walk around stage looking tough and regurgitating stale raps over pre-recorded tapes.

To some degree, social consciousness also ties the groups together. Michael Franti, leader of the seven-piece Bay Area hip-hop band Spearhead and one of the most outspoken rappers currently recording, points out that "all the groups [on the tour] have distinguished themselves as unique in the realm of what's out there. Every group on the bill has an interest in more than the music and is outspoken about what's going on in the world."

It's their particular qualities that to a large extent earn the Smokin' Groovers the label "alternative rap," a title most acts resist because it implies they're outside the core hip-hop community. Franti paraphrases fellow accused alterna-R&Ber Me'Shell Ndegéocello when he argues, "The alternative to rap is nothing. Hip-hop is a culture, not just a music. A dress, an attitude, artwork, dance, everything. The alternative is an absence of culture."

When Franti began releasing records in the late '80s, groups like KRS-One and Public Enemy made his brand of social-critic rap closer to the rule than the exception. His first group, the Beatnigs, were more about political theater. His early '90s project with Beatnig DJ Rono Tse, Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, took a similarly confrontational approach, inspired in equal parts by Chuck D and proto-rapper Gil Scott-Heron. But it wasn't until he released Spearhead's debut, 1994's Home, that Franti learned to put rhythm before rhetoric. Although it still pushes topical lyrics, a newfound melodicism and organic funk make Home his most successful recording to date.

"Before, I really wasn't thinking as much about the enjoyment of music as about getting an idea across," he admits. "But at some point, I said, `I love listening to Sly Stone and Bob Marley and Marvin Gaye.' They were all saying something, but they would put it through music you could just listen to and enjoy. If you didn't care about what it was saying, then you didn't have to check for it."

Spearhead's upcoming Chocolate Supahighway (due in October) features a more hip-hop-oriented beat-and-bass sound, says Franti, with songs "about life as a whole -- whether that means political things, partying, my girlfriend, smoking herb, or God." The new material will get its first airing on the Smokin' Grooves stage, where Spearhead's full-band funk will make rap music as it's rarely heard. For Franti, though, it's still pure hip-hop: "We play live, but we try to retain the roots of hip-hop: the audience participation with the group, the beats, the rhythms, and flowing on top of the music -- using my voice the way a jazz artist uses a saxophone."

Spearhead's tour mates A Tribe Called Quest -- along with Busta Rhymes, De La Soul, Jungle Brothers, and others in their Native Tongues posse -- were among the first generation of rappers branded alternative, as far back as 1988. They earned their reputation not so much because they were hip-hop outsiders but because their combination of pop- and jazz-tinged tracks with a spiritual, non-aggressive flow appealed to outsiders. Namely, white music critics and college students.

Through three highly praised and commercially successful albums, Quest have managed to retain street credibility while consistently attracting suburban fans. Their first release since 1993's Midnight Marauders, the brand-new Beats, Rhymes and Life, continues this winning formula: immaculately produced tracks coupled with positive, playful, soulful rapping.

It's also the group's first CD since frontman Q-Tip's conversion to Islam, a change that makes Quest sound more alternative to mainstream rap than ever. An early version of Beats, Rhymes and Life found the 25-year-old Queens native uttering the rap blasphemy "Hip-hop could never be a way of life/It doesn't teach you how to raise a child or treat a wife." The lines have since been removed because, Q-Tip says, "I think I spoke hastily . . . What I should have said is just that there's another way of life that supersedes hip-hop, because there are traits in hip-hop that don't hit a code of moral standards."

But like Franti, Q-Tip knows that all the preaching in the world won't inspire listeners the way a kicking beat and smooth groove will. "It's important to have a balance because [otherwise] you're going to be looked at as excessive. And that's not going to aid our plans, which is to implement good music and good vibes."

With an approach that incorporates Spearhead's live hip-hop dynamism and Quest's street-friendly virtuousness, it's the Fugees who earlier this year broke gangsta rap's dominance. After the group's promising debut album, Blunted on Reality, failed to take root in 1993, the co-ed trio -- two Haitian-American cousins (Pras and Wyclef) and a Columbia University undergrad (Lauryn Hill) -- have hit big with The Score, their chart-topping multi-platinum follow-up.

Although the group's success came as a shock to those convinced conscious rap couldn't sell, you have to remember that they earned their mainstream audience through their mostly non-rap cover of Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly." Without that cover, massive sales would've been far less likely.

Still, with any luck their assault on gangsta's dark reign could signal the most momentous shift in popular music since Nirvana smelled teen spirit. Like Cobain and company, the Fugees are that rarest of cultural commodities: a hugely popular group who deserve to be. They combine hip-hop electronics with roots acoustics, East Coast style with reggae and soul touches, gracious singing with energetic raps, and a cocky swagger with intelligence and sensitivity.

Of their live show, Fugees rapper and multi-instrumentalist Wyclef says, "You might see me on the accordion, you might see me on the keyboards, you might see L [singer Lauryn Hill] grab a guitar, Pras grab a bass. It's just gonna be real. I think the Fugees have made a statement in hip-hop within the past two years. I've seen people's shows get a lot better after performing with us."

With bands like these in its fold, Smokin' Grooves is the best indication in years of hip-hop's continuing vitality. This is a case where House of Blues may actually be living up to black music's substantial legacy.

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The Smokin' Grooves Tour comes to Great Woods this Monday, August 5, with Cypress Hill, Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers, A Tribe Called Quest, Spearhead, the Fugees, and Busta Rhymes. Gates open at 4:30, show starts at 6. Tix are $28. Call 423-NEXT.