Deep In The Grooves -ftg Greg Fischman

The Inside Track On All The Brand New Underground Hip Hop Releases

In his first Canadian appearance, Kanye West proved to a sold out Toronto crowd that he is worthy of all of the recent attention he has been getting. Even from the lineup of the show it’s clear that Kanye isn’t like his Roc-a-fella label-mates: Dilated Peoples have been providing tour support for Kanye West throughout The College Dropout Tour, a nice alternative to Young Gunz or other Roc-a-fella recording artists.

The show kicked off with Rochester (the emcee, not the city) trying to get some attention from the crowd by bragging about the fact he has appeared on television and has even been on the radio! Rochester failed to get much interest from the crowd, partially due to the two big names appearing after him, but primarily because he simply wasn’t good. Rochester gave your typical bad performance, relying on his hype man half the time and talking to the crowd, rather than trying to prove himself worthy to an audience that knew relatively little about him.

With the departure of Rochester, the show officially began. As soon as Dilated Peoples took the stage, the crowd began working its way away from the overpriced bar to the stage, hoping to hear some old tracks, and new tracks from their recent release Neighborhood Watch. The Peoples got the show going, doing what they do best, rhyming with little talk. Despite the short opening timeslot, they were still able to get through jams from The Platform and Expansion Team, as well as crowd pleasers like "Worst Comes to Worst." In the tradition of Gangstarr and other groups where the DJ is as essential as the emcee, Babu was given ample time to show off his skills on the wheels of steal, wooing the crowd and proving why he is just as important to the group as Evidence and Rakaa. Dilated Peoples got the job done even with the limited time they had, accomplishing the two missions they came in with: hype the crowd up for the main act and, more importantly, hype the crowd up for their new record.

After a brief interlude, 9^th Wonder took the stage and brought out Kanye West, the man most people in the packed club where there to see. Kanye took the stage with 9^th Wonder as well as a piano player/soul singer and violinist. With only one album out, which features half the tracks with other emcees, one could not be sure what to expect from Kanye. He opened with his verses from "Two Words," and it was on from that point. Kanye not only performed songs that he has on his album as an emcee but also songs that he has done production on, a move that put the crowd over the top. After a few of his own songs off of College Dropout, he went into an array of tracks that he has produced, ranging from Talib Kweli’s "Get By" to both tracks off of Jay-Z’s Black Album, "Lucifer" and "Encore." It was much more than Kanye just spitting his friend’s verses over his own beats, however; every beat was accompanied by piano and violin, a unique and indescribable live experience. Of course Kanye wouldn’t leave The Docks without performing singles like "Slow Jamz" and "Through the Wire," which have taken over just about every radio station over the last few months

The room was feeling every minute. The Toronto crowd even sang along happily during "Workout Plan," screaming "cover your mouth like you got Sars" along with Kanye. Regardless of how bad some mainstream hip hop is getting, Kanye West is proving that there are still some big names out their putting out quality music and quality live shows. With his continuously rising popularity and likely future albums with him as an emcee and producer, Kanye is on his way to becoming one of the biggest and most respected names in hip hop.