Brooklyn gave back in a big way with the third annual Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival on June 23rd at Empire Fulton Ferry State Park. The line-up was a who’s who of true school hip hoppers, including: Kidz in the Hall, Skillz, Dres from Black Sheep, Large Professor, Sean Price, Consequence and of course Ghostdini himself to headline.
Of course, at a show of this magnitude, the surprise guests were in abundance. Jeru, Parrish Smith, and Fat Joe all came through and rocked the spot, busting out classics in between the scheduled acts. We also can’t forget the MC for the show, legendary TV host Uncle Ralph McDaniels kept shit live, dropping knowledge and spinning classics. The ladies were looking fine, the music was bumping, but we got all awkward, resorted to our coping mechanism and chatted it up with Double-O from Kidz in the Hall.
“It’s just fun. I’m obviously waiting to see all the greats, Ghost, Dres, my colleagues, and the people I looked up to coming up. I was in Brooklyn in the ’80s and it was like Video Music Box with Ralph McDaniels was my connection to hip hop—That’s running through my veins. I just like the vibe, look where we are! Shit like this just shows you how beautiful New York is, you got the two bridges, we on the green grass right on the water. It’s definitely the best that New York has to offer right now.”
All the performers straight kilt it. Sean Price brought out his Boot Camp brethren for classics like “Sound Bwoy Burreil” and “Bucktown,” and of course murked his newer material. Despite getting kicked off stage early due to time constraints, Q-Borough’s representative Cons-to-the-Quence kept the energy up and kicked some joints off his highly slept on debut album, Don’t Quit Your Day Job. It pretty much goes without saying that A) Ghostface had mad energy on stage, B) had mad classics to run through, C) had the entire Theodore Unit on stage with him, wasting a good 10 minutes of his set, and D) let the crowd join in for a sing along of “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” in remembrance of the Fallen Wu Soldier, ODB.
As Skillz put it, “Good energy, good music, a beautiful day, you couldn’t ask for nothing more.” Big ups to the people at Brooklyn Bodega for putting it on. Shit was so hip hop that afterwards I went home and passed put for three weeks, woke up, and immediately had to post, potna!
We were truly inspired. Be on the lookout for one of the performers, a long time Mass Appeal favorite, to be featured in Issue #47.
Photos: Rob Mayer
