KOOL KEITH
Maritime Hall, San Francisco, January 30, 1998

Kool Keith (a k a Dr. Octagon or Dr. Octo) may be a vision of hip-hop's future, but this evening was all about the past. Like some Rap.101 class, four acts took the stage throughout the evening, each representing a different yet crucial chapter in hip-hop's history -- human beat box, turntablist, live band, and solo rapper. And while Kool Keith, Common, X-ecutioners, and Rahzal (of the Roots) are all modern-day innovators, they scored their greatest cheers when invoking their influences, singing and sampling everyone from James Brown to L.L. Cool J.

It started with the unbelievable oral talents of Rahzal, a man who can stand alone onstage and mimic instruments -- bass, drums, samples, melody, chorus -- with just a microphone and his mouth. Wearing a modest Yankee cap and leather jacket, Rahzal schooled the audience by explaining, "This is how hip-hop started," then launching into fragments of popular songs by Run DMC, Beastie Boys, Wu-Tang Clan, and Mary J. Blige, among others. "I've had people saying I had a mechanical device, some DAT device," he boasted, "but this hip-hop is raw." The crowd pleaser: Singing the chorus and beats *at the same time*.

Of course, singing is just half the equation; DJs finesse the mix. And the X-ecutioners take turntablism to an art form, scratching and cutting vinyl into simple phrases or even monosyllabic sounds, and reconstructing them into wholly new songs. The key is to tease the audience by letting them hear familiar portions of the sample -- usually rap and funk classics -- before deconstructing them. One by one, the four members of the X-ecutioners showed off their stuff, applying elbows, foreheads, butts, and mostly fingers to the turntables. When they played together, it sounded like a band -- at least for the moment.

Common's real-live band delivered a dramatically fuller sound, as drummer, bassist, DJ, guitarist, and keyboardist filled the room with jazzy instrumentals under Common's clever, staccato freestyling. He, too, covered the standards, often in medley form, including a reference to Boogie Down Productions' "I'm Still Number One," with shout-outs to Oakland, San Francisco, Big Daddy Kane, EPMD, and a quasi-political rant against "fake niggas" (brothers who claim to be part of the revolution but never act on it). If you were paying attention, you might have noticed the crowd onstage beginning to swell -- from 5 to 10 to 15 people. Common ended his set with a stage dive.

Anticipating Kool Keith's arrival, people in the audience scrambled for optimum position, while the crowd onstage ballooned to 30 or so. It was impossible to discern who was who in Kool Keith's posse -- all you could see was a mass of baseball caps, jerseys, oversized coats, and casual posturing. One guy looked like Ice-T. Sure 'nuff, it *was* Ice (talk about old school), and he seemed happy to introduce and join Keith in song. Musically backed by just a lone DJ, Keith flew across the stage, playing to the crowd, rapping louder, faster, and more aggressively than he ever does on album. He was in attack mode, bolstered by members of Ultramagnetic MCs -- one of his many posses -- and a slew of other unidentified homies. Fans familiar with his 1996 critically acclaimed Dr. Octagonecologyst CD and his 1997 solo CD, Sex Style immediately recognized the standout tunes: "Sex Style," "Girl Let Me Touch You," "Plastic World," and "Keep It Real + Represent." All prime examples of Keith's kooky sexist comedy.

Keith also played his closest-thing-to-a-hit, "Blue Flowers," a trippy song that merges spaced-out, stream-of-consciousness with creepy samples and state-of-the-art turntablism. After the set, but before Keith's encore, Ice-T grabbed the mike and waxed poetic on the state of hip-hop's East coast-West coast conflicts. "East-West is dead," he declared before plugging his upcoming album and busting into a cappella L.A. gangsta rhymes. Keith returned for an encore and stayed after the show to sign autographs -- as his henchmen pulled women from the audience to go backstage for, presumably, a different kind of encore.

JAMES OLIVER CURY