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Can’t stop won’t stop
G-Unit chills, Grandmaster Flash thrills, and Big Digits kills
BY ELISABETH DONNELLY
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There was a frisson in the air at the Theater District club Rumor a week ago Wednesday, though it was hard to tell whether this was from the Tony Yayo Thoughts of a Predicate Felon posters on the streets, sightings of the G-Unit van, or the bulletproof-vested security guard patting down scantily clad ladies and Rocawear-rocking fellas alike. The Eminem/50 Cent Anger Management tour was storming through the Tweeter Center that night, and this was, in the parlance, the "official" after-party. The rules of such engagements dictate that anything can happen, through most likely very little will. Even so, dudes off the street were waiting outside the club for a glimpse of 50 and crew. Mogul Productions’ flyers advertised a "strickly inforced" dress code and appearances by Young Buck and Lloyd Banks, who had drummed up some pre-party publicity by getting arrested together in New York the previous night. If you looked at the flyers and concluded that the pair might perform, well, no one was going out of his way to disillusion you. Buck, Banks, and Yayo rolled into the building en masse at 12:30 am and promptly chilled in the VIP room, creating a bottleneck effect among rubbernecking clubgoers, while the main room stepped up its drunk-girl game with Rize-style stripper-dancing on tables to Crime Mob’s "Knuck If You Buck" and T.I.’s "You Don’t Know Me". When I left, the DJs were keeping it hype with interjections of "G-Unit is in the house!" and "To all my ladies who don’t have disease, who are STD-free, make some noise!" Lesson of the week, as related by one of hip-hop’s founding fathers, Grandmaster Flash, on Thursday night at Faneuil Hall’s Sanctuary: "If you have a case of too-cool-itis, go home." No one was showing symptoms, however: the audience, a happy and diverse bunch, had come down to benefit Habitat for Humanity. Survivor: Africa winner Ethan Zohn made a speech about how charity is awesome and you get laid more after you win a million dollars, but the crowd paid no heed. The main event was the legend himself, and Flash, outfitted in backwards white Kangol cap and green polo, came out pontificating: "Hip-hop was not created by a breakdancer, hip-hop was not created by a graffiti artist, no way, hip-hop was not created by an MC. Hip-hop was created by a DJ in 1971: Kool Herc." That history lesson out of the way, he began another, kicking off with 15 minutes of breakbeats, including a spin through Phil Collins’s "In the Air Tonight" where he killed it on the drum breakdown. Ushering the wheels of steel — for real: no computers! — on a tour through the windmills of your mind, Flash dropped bombs heedless of genre: AC/DC, Billy Squire, Falco, young raw LL Cool J, Michael Jackson. As yuppies and Ethan Zohn got down, the cavernous Sanctuary felt like a sweaty block party. It’s impossible to have too-cool-itis when it comes to Cambridge’s finest party rap duo, Big Digits, who brought their matching white pants and mesh shirts (sweet!) to Mass Art Sunday night. Mac Swell and TD trade lines like brothers (uh, biological brothers), and their live show — all jumps and cross-floor knee slides — has a James Brown level of commitment. Their songs are getting weirder: a new one called "Cops Hate Parties" started out like Devo and evolved into handclaps and ’80s-style Run-DMC raps. By the time they ended their set with a blistering "Dance Casino," the audience was stomping up and down and pogoing. Pretty sure Flash would’ve approved.
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