Just reblogging this to add that I don’t think any of these things can be “blamed” on the fact that they’re really young, and I don’t think it’s fair to single out OF. For years now, I’ve been pretty amazed at how BAD rap shows have gotten, even by MCs who have been in the game for decades and are supposed to be professional. Rapping over the actual vocal tracks instead of the instrumental used to be an exception, but now it’s pretty much the norm and it’s a total rarity when rappers don’t do this. Basically, for better or for worse, rap shows now essentially exist so that a rapper’s fans can pay money to be in the same room as them, and the fans mostly seem to be cool with this. I mean, judging by the crowd at all of these OF shows so far, most of them were there just so they could scream all the words to “French”, and they couldn’t give a fuck less what it sounded like.
Odd Future @ Slim’s in SF
well this video makes it look like a better performance than it was. Their inexperience showed on stage which is to be expected considering how young all of them are. They were hype as fuck but I’m hoping someone will show them the ropes and teach them how to hold mics, use instrumentals, and get syd some real dj equipment so she can learn to mix, she played dope songs but it was a trainwreck. If they could get those basics down their live should would be so much better. The way it is now is just pure chaos on stage with a bunch of kids screaming in the crowd that they can’t hear shit anyways
given there are a grip of terrible live rap shows but there are rappers who perform well. I’ve never seen a bad David banner show for example. If OF wants to learn how to be hype as shit on stage and still sound decent they need to holler at him. I do think a lot of this can be attributed to their inexperience because of the mistakes they made.
Now going to see raekwon forget all the words to his own songs is a different problem and that show fucking sucked and I have no desire to see Rae ever again. But I’ve seen ghost lay it down proper. I’ve also seen lazy ass rappers half ass a show. I’ve seen rappers also jump in crowds and scream songs into an audience that screamed it back. It’s all on the performer, Chingo Bling is great, Killa Kyloen outperformed Slim Thug just opening for the guy. Freeway and Jacka are awesome together.
yes there are a lot of shitty live rap shows but there enough good ones too. I’m pointed out these things about OF’s show because I think if they can correct those issues their show will benefit from it immensely