Rock Steady
Designed to showcase hip hop in its raw essence, this
year's Rock Steady show couldn't have met that goal any
more perfectly. The line-up read like the text to a rap fan's
dream: Nefertiti, K7, Artifacts, Alkaholiks, OC, Organized
Konfusion, Hard To Obtain, Milk, Mad
Skillz, Cold Crush Brothers, Rock Steady
Crew, Rock Steady DJ's and (the much-
anticipated reunion of) Brand Nubian.
STROK
Brand Nubian
Bobbito Garcia, a well-known New York hip
hop personality, and Crazy Legs of the Rock
Steady Crew have been putting on outdoor
jams during the New Music Seminar for the
past three years. The shows are a throwback to
the old style jams through which hip hop was
truly born, and encompass all the elements
through which it was created the music, break
dancing and graffiti.
This year it seemed the show was doomed. It
was pouring and anybody but a die-hard fan
would have looked out the window
and said, "Fuck that, it must be can-
celled." That couldn't have been fur-
ther from the truth. This year's show
was an inspirational example of how
much fun hip hop is when you take
out all of the bullshit. This was a
show put on by fans for fans.
Nobody performed for money and
nobody had to pay a dime to get in.
K7 said the only cop he saw was
there checking out the show. The
only attitude that entire afternoon
was that everyone was there for the
love of hip hop and they'd stand through
storms as proof.
Milk
As Crazy Legs says, "You gotta give credit to
K7 'cause when other artists saw this multi-plat-
inum artist performing in the rain, in the thun-
der and lightning, it set the standard for the
day. I have the audio and you can hear the rain
coming down. It was amazing." Bobbito adds
"Once it started raining, everybody started
bonding and saying 'Fuck it.' What made it so
real were the people standing there through
everything, it was heartwarming."
The only potentially explosive incident
came when shirts were being thrown from
the stage into the crowd. Two kids both
grabbed one at the same time and were
having a tug of war and it looked like they
were going to throw blows until Legs said,
"Don't be the only one to fuck it up for
everybody." The kids then went up and
apologized to each other..
Stand-out performances included The
Rock Steady Crew, Artifacts, Milk, Mad Skillz,
Cold Crush Brothers, and of
course, Brand Nubian.
This year's show proved that
when you take away all the mass
marketing, promoters and money-
making schemes that tend to cor-
rupt art (and have definitely cor
EBL
rupted hip hop), you're left with the basics of
what you loved so much in the first place. In a
world where Lollapalooza and Woodstock II are
considered alternative delights, it's hard to get
back to that. But if more people would follow
Bobbito and Crazy Legs' example, going to
shows would be a lot more fun.
-Jennifer Lehrer
66 THRASHER
Cold Crush Brothers
The new album featuring "Don't Care"
WORLPD
DEMISE
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