O Brother where art thou

Little Brother at the Jazz Cafe 1/7/09

Thanks to the deelitefool Shook and Doctors Orders mammoth 4th birthday celebration I got to check out North Carolina natives Little Brother at the Jazz cafe.
Now i'm not particularly hot when it comes to hip hop, as i've established before, I'm not incredibly good at keeping up to date, but I did a lil bit of research before trotting down to camden and recognised a few names on the groups good ol' wiki page- Kanye West anyone? Lil Wayne anyone else? nah? ok!
supported was Ghanian rapper Wanlov the Kubolor and acquaintance, these guys were a nice choice of warm up and managed to get the crowd going nicely with their global blend of afroamerican tinged hiplife. a highly enjoyable affair.

It wasn't until Phonte, Big Pooh (ahar i know, i like it too) and co came onto the stage that things really started to pick up. Waltzing onto the stage to the soulful acapella version of Jackson 5's 'I'll Be There', it nearly made me cry, maybe it was a combination of alcohol and the death of his majesty the King of Pop last week, but it was nigh on impossible not to be touched by rapper Phonte's homage to jacko.
I strongly believe regardless of a groups performance, flawless or not, the crowd reaction is paramount, (eg. Tv on the Radio at ABC in Glasgow- awesome band, shittest audience in the galaxy did not make for a particularly great gig). But the Jazz cafe crowd were really responsive, everyone seemed to know the words (except for me of course, i just mumbled unconvincingly and mimed some made up words inorder to feel like part of the crew). Many a head was nodding away, arms pumping up and down and three of the tallest guys i've ever seen in my life stood smak bang in front of me doing a strange jig. They were all at least 6ft 4 plus, why would they do that?!!!

Phonte provided some lovely smooth rnb style crooning, singing random phrases and words in the lull between each song. 'ASSSS ON THE COVER, ASSS ON THE COVER'. Whilst Big Pooh gave the crowd a taster from his latest solo album, which might i add sounded exactly like every other song Little Brother performed, but i'm not complaining, just making an observation.
unfortunately i didn't get to witness the remaining spectacle due to public transportation being what it is. Just as I made my way out of the door, a tune which sounded to me like one I ACTUALLY recognised crept into my ears and the crowd seemed to get even more restless- but I still regrettably made my way into the humid london night! I always seem to miss the best parts god damn!

For now, Here's a relatively amusing video from the group it's kinda funny.