DJ Shadow (photo: Jasta Austin)
Finding out how something is made can be a disappointment. Sometimes it can even be horrifying what you find out. But, sometimes learning how something is made is truly glorious, and it only makes you love that thing more. That’s what DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist did, for not just hip-hop, but all groovy musics, through the eyes and ears of the great Afrika Bambaataa on the last stop of the current leg of their Renegades of Rhythm tour.
Although the music was the star of the show, we can’t continue without mentioning the supremely impressive visuals. As Chemist and Shadow laid down the aural family tree of hip-hop on six turntables, the screen behind them played like a slideshow from a master’s course in groove. Pulsing with colour, the screen blasted out album cover after album cover of stuff culled from Bambaataa’s collection, providing an endless list of things to dig up.
It was a pleasant surprised to see a Cat Stevens record flashed up there, and that led to great disappointment when a Steve Miller Band record flashed up there a bit later. Surely that’s proof that even those with the godliest of tastes can make mistakes.
DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist (photo: Jasta Austin)
There were obvious choices for Shadow and Chemist; artists that had to be paid tribute to, like James Brown, where they started the whole night, Grover Washington, who probably doesn’t get the recognition he should, and Public Enemy, who ran with the blueprint Bambaataa and the Zulu Nation laid down. Yes’ “Owner of a Lonely Heart” was maybe the most surprising choice. Stop right now and think about Afrika Bambaataa grooving out to Yes… It hurts my brain, too.
Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash were given the appropriate spotlights with tracks and proper shout-outs from Shadow, who credited the two men as the fellow architects of everything we call hip-hop, along with Bambaataa himself.
But this night was all about that man. Bambaataa’s tracks elicited the biggest responses from the crowd and got the most booties shaking. It’s hard to believe that one man’s record collection can contain so much history, not just hip-hop history, but a shared musical history that crossed so many boundaries before it was the thing that everyone did.
Shadow and Chemist did something special and important with this show and tour. In paying tribute to Bambaataa, they paid tribute to the entire history of rhythm.
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