Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Bill Thompson almost ruined my Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival Experience!
"I felt like the Bill Thompson street team...."
So last Saturday, Wes Jackson and the Brooklyn Bodega crew held it down for the 5th annual incarnation of the Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival. BHF has become a well-oiled machine and real landmark on the NYC summer concert calendar: f-ck a Summerstage, Summerjam or Siren Festival - BHF is where's it at if you're a true Brooklyn and/or hip hop head. I take particular pride in this fact as I was working with Wes doing some Sales and Biz Dev. work when he conceived this festival and helped him land some of the initial sponsorship dollars (thank you, Laura and Felicia at Virgin mobile and Partick at Cornerstone/X-box) that allowed him to get this thing off the ground and do it in a way that would make this amazing event free to all hip hop fans.
I could get into a whole thing about the artists at the event: big up to Dead Prez, Smif N Wessun, DJ Premier (fam, you couldn't have brought out Blaq Poet, Big Shug or some of the other Year Round Records massive so I wasn't just standing there watching you play records from your, admiitedly classic, catalog??), Torae & Marco Polo, Chip Fu (and Kool Kim/NY Oil & Grand Daddy IU both of whom he brought out on stage) and especially the surprise appearance of Black Thought who was the highlight of the day for me. (If they're still doing those Roots Sessions at the Highline, you owe it to yourself to go - dude gives master classes on excellence in live MC-ing every time he steps on stage). Apologies to Pharoahe Monch but I bounced before he hit the stage. Like I said, I could get into more about the show but I really gotta talk about Bill Thompson instead.
For those that don't know him, he's the comptroller for the city of New York and a candidate for maayor in this Fall's election. Now I don't know dude that well but if I could vote this November, his shenanigans on Saturday would just about assure that he would not get my vote. He started off innocuous enough saluting Wes, Brooklyn, the festival and hip hop as being a potential tool of change and communication for the youth (or some such political doublespeak). However, he quickly devolved into a really cloying, hackneyed, awkward quasi-stump speech in which he repeatedly (about five times by my recollection) said I'm Bill Thompson and I'm running for Mayor of New York City. I was even prepared to forgive his tone deafness and inappropriate stumping for a crowd that neither knew or cared who he was, but at the end he even tried to get a round of call 'n response going where he inveighed the crowd to chant, "Mayor!" when he said, "Bill." Wow, it was just just sad! I kind of felt bad for dude by the end to be honest. There was yet another politician who hit the stage later who seemed similarly out-of-step, invoking Obama's name and trying to 'connect with the youth' but I tuned him out. Note to Wes: in future, keep it only to Brooklyn Borough Prez, Marty Markowitz as far as the political proclomations for the BHF go. He's kind of corny too frankly, but at least he knows his limitations and does not overstep them (so much).
Getting back to the music though, considering the rain, the turnout was great and the performances were too (for the most part). Thanks to Pamela at the Bodega and her crew of cute helpers on the VIP access but I just wasn't up for fighting the media throng in the camera pit to get better flicks and interviewing artists ain't really my thing here at the Kitchen (for now, at least). It was also amazing to see all kinds of folk out there who I would never in a million years have guessed would come to this kind of event: I'm talking LL Bean (not even J, Crew)-looking white families with little toe-headed kids. Props to Wes for making his vision of a family-friendly, mutil-racial and multi-generational tribute to 'positive, cosnscious, progressive' hip hop and Brooklyn a reality. Here's to year 6!
Related:
End of the Weak's BHF '09 video recap.
Download: J. Period feat. Black Thought - “Brooklyn Go Hard (Live at Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival 2009)” MP3 [right click and save as, please] | zip file download
Online:
Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival: official website
Labels: Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival
