Confessions of a hip-hop junkie

Have you ever used a remote control as a microphone as you rhymed your heart out with your favorite rapper? Ever choreographed a simple dance move to that one specific lyric to debut at the next karaoke night? If you answered “yes,” to either of these questions, it’s OK, you are not alone. You are one of a handful forced to create your own buzz in a city that, while it does traffic heavily in most music genres, usually only has a trickle of hip-hop in supply.

Luckily, this last Friday (May 2), Chico’s hip-hop junkies were able to get a huge dose of relief administered at Lost on Main when two hip-hop luminaries, Lyrics Born and Gift of Gab—both incredible MCs with larger-than-life stage presences—graced our quaint community with inspiring performances.

Hip-hop cut this pure attracts a specific brand of mostly old-school fans out of our domestic hibernation. There were all the familiar faces in the local hip-hop underground—the local business owner/ex-b-boy; the contractor who moonlights spinning vinyl; the lifelong DJ; and me, the fledgling hip-hop historian. And unfortunately, that was about it. The turnout was sparce for such a legit lineup.

Chico’s One-Up, the acoustic DJ, backed by drums and guitar, preheated the small crowd, closing his set with a melodic version of Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s “Got Your Money,” providing the perfect taste of things to come.

Next up was DJ Spenny, who continued stringing out our anticipation with some nostalgic dope from days past. With his two turntables, the Chico DJ deftly combined pure strains with new mixes. Moving seamlessly between samples of dance-inducing funk break beats and feats of lyrical supremacy, Spenny sprinkled in maddening tidbits of songs once woven into our collective DNA, providing glimpses of memories flickering in the darkness.

The legend of the verbal skills possessed by both Lyrics Born and Gift of Gab—two Nor Cal-bred members of the Quannum record label/lyrical clan—is known worldwide and Chico was treated to a full display of their talents. Gift of Gab, whose physical presence belies the incredible speed with which lyrics pour from his husky frame, came across like time-lapse audio. Rapid beats pulsed and were punctuated by even faster driving rhyming couplets in what seemed to be a performance aimed for the Guinness World Records book. The Blackalicious MC blew through the set with such blistering speed that the audience was still gasping for air from the previous song as we giddily struggled to match pace and devour the next hit. To paraphrase funk master Rick James, “Hip-hop is a hell of a drug!”

Gab concluded his set with the apt “Chemical Calisthenics” from the 2002 Blackalicious album Blazing Arrow (“Lead, gold, tin, iron, platinum, zinc/ When I rap you think/ iodine nitrate activate”). Feeding the rabid fans in attendance one last tongue-twisting fix for the evening, Gab had the hip-hop fiends chanting along hungrily, “I get high every day!”

Lyrics Born took the stage and led with the opening line from “Kontrol Phreak” off the 2010 album As U Were: “I don’t need no introduction/ because these folks already know me!” And then it was on …

Though the attendance still left something to be desired, Lyrics Born and longtime Quannum songstress Joyo Velarde, also his wife, performed with enough ferocious energy to fill a packed stadium. Playing mostly tunes from his more recent musical offerings, the duo whipped the crowd of hip-hop junkies into a music-fueled frenzy. The height of the frenetic hour-long performance (which preceded a 20-minute encore) was the funky and infectious “Callin’ Out” from the album Later That Day (2003): “Callin’ out to all area crews/ We goin’ make this shit happen right here right now.”