Photo credit: Melissa Miller
Always a genre with an eye toward the next big thing where anything more than 10 years old simply gets lumped under the catchall label “old school," hip-hop has pushed its boundaries so far and reinvented itself so many times in its 40-or-so years of existence that it can be hard to remember how seismic certain events actually were. For example, while it has grown familiar as decades passed, becoming just a part of the genre’s DNA, it’s difficult to overstate how much of a gamechanger Eric B. & Rakim’s iconic 1987 release, Paid in Full, really was. Almost singlehandedly ushering in rap’s Golden Age, Rakim’s lyrical breakthroughs proved particularly influential, and for the very first time Friday night, Milwaukee had the chance to see the man himself perform those stone-cold classics live.
A sign of Rakim’s status as a legendary emcee—and hopefully a good omen for an increased hip-hop presence on the Pabst Theater Group’s concert calendar—Turner Hall Ballroom was all but packed by the time local opener Klassik took the stage. With his blunted, downtempo soul loops, heady rhymes and dub-wise subbase, Klassik wasn’t the most stylistically consistent choice for the bill imaginable, and unfortunately the mix came off rather harshly separated in the ballroom’s cavernous space, but he’s far too animated and talented a performer for little things like that to slow him down. Clearly making the most of the exposure, he quickly had the massive crowd on his side, most memorably with a deconstructed and unfortunately all-too relevant take on Woody Guthrie’s egalitarian folk anthem “This Land is Your Land."
After a wait of more than an hour, Rakim appeared, accompanied by DJ Scratch (and two portly gentleman whose sole responsibility seemed to be milling around filming things on their phones) and proceeding to play a few assorted hits before disappearing again. Soon he returned and repeated the process, leaving Scratch to play the “Who Remembers These Classics?" game for a while.
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It was all standard rap crowd work, but not exactly what you were eager to see with one of the greatest of all time waiting in the wings. Eventually, Rakim remerged and energetically dug into Paid in Full, which easily made the standing around worthwhile. Sadly, it didn’t last; all told, his set was less than an hour long, ending abruptly. It was as full of stunning moments as it was short on substance.
