Letter To The Editor March 23 1998

RAKIM & LIPSYNCH

[Reprinted from 3-23-98 Friday Nite Vibe Newsletter]

Speaking of returns..I gotta chance to peep Rakim the other night..last Sunday every hip hop head in the Bay Area converged upon Marintime Hall in San Francisco to watch hip hop's most revered emcee..All the opening acts got busy.. Some had live bands.. others came with nice shows.. The tone was set for the lyrical God..

Before the R hit the stage.. the capacity crowd heard the opening riffs come off the turntables which were manned by dj/manger Bill Blast... It was the same cue used by DJ Cash Money in his song The Mighty Hard Rocker..All of a sudden the bass drops and 'It's Been A Long Time' starts playing.. The entire crowd goes berserk.. Rakim hits the stage with the fury of a tiger and starts shredding the microphone.. I haven't seen a crowd this hyped since KRS-One.. The building is literally shaking because everyone is bouncing... Just when you thought the crowd couldn't get more hyped.. The beat for 'My Melody' drops.. and it goes to another level.. I'm watching Rakim pace back and forth..his two hype men getting busy and then I notice the unthinkable.. I hear Rakim's vocals.. But his mike is nowhere near his face... I look again to see if he has a lapel mic.. or if I'm just hearing the pre-recorded chorus to his song.. Nope I'm hearing the 1986 vocals as clear as day to My Melody and not the '98 version of with Rakim mouthing them.. Yes, folks the brother was lip synching...

Someone to my left mentions that he too notices The R is lip synching..An informed looking head replies that Rakim doesn't have instrumentals to all his old stuff.. Ok I'll buy that.. even though I have an instrumental copy of My melody in my collection.. It was first released on Zakia records.. However, song after song followed and with each passing song Rakim either rapped bits or pieces over them.. or just straight up lip synched.. The crowd didn't seem to care.. Because hit after hit kept rolling off the dat... Me I kept asking myself how the hell is the best emcee in hip hop gonna sit there and lip synch..

I was hoping to find that Rakim was sick.. perhaps he had a bad throat infection and he was courageously trying to do the show so as not to disappoint the fans.. Such was not the case.. His smooth voice had a lot to say in between songs.. He wasn't ill....Rakim later busted a lack luster freestyle in the middle of all the lipsynching and then went right back to mouthing over one of his classics..Heck when Puffy and Mase rolled through town a few months back.. They didn't lip synch.. Run DMC was in town the night before at The Sound Factory and they didn't lip synch.. They gotz busy... Gang Starr was in town the night before.. Guru came on my show and ripped freestyles.. There was no lip synching there. Seeing Rakim do this was like going to heaven and finding out that God smokes crack.. I was disappointed.... Not so much with Rakim.. as I was with hip hop's current state of affairs..Rakim came out of a day and time when hip hop demanded that you know how to perform.. Heck the brotha dropped a classic song called 'Move The Crowd'...The thing that struck me was the crowd remained hyped for his entire set...The folks were like.. 'this is Rakim and he can do what he wants..' This fallacy didn't seem to matter much...Oh well it's not a perfect world.. Am I asking for too much..Let me know what you think about this..: kingdave@sirius.com

What's up Dave? I too was at the Ra show and I saw the lip sync business. I guess I didn't care that much either. Just seeing Rakim and the energy caused everyone to go into a panic. It was a real dope show. My girl Laura Giles from Patchwerk records saw him the day before in LA and also said he was lip synching. I don't know what is up with that. I too thought that he didn't have all the instrumentals or something. I guess he just thinks he doesn't have to do it live now. But you saw the crowd, I mean it was the most hyped I had seen a crowd since the KRS show and that crowd was really hyped.

We've had Common through here, Kool Kieth, the Liks, Organized Konfusion, The Whoridas, Keith Murray, Hiero, Busta and none of them got the crowd as open as a lip synching Ra did. That Rakim show gave me a "we may never see this again here" type feeling. I think that the crowd felt the same way. I grew up on that cat and seeing him live was kinda a dream. And even though he was lip synching it was one of the better shows I have seen in my 21 years.

Peace
Tek

What up,

That shocks me to hear about the Ra-lip synching incident. But I noticed the same thing (to my shock and disappointment) when I saw Kool Keith perform with the Ultramagnetics at Tramps in NYC recently ... he wasn't actually lip synching, but he was singing along to the full <> tracks of all of his joints. This actually sounded tight for the Ultramag joints (i.e. I didn't notice) but then he went into the Dr. Octagon tracks and started messing up the lyrics - so the recorded voice would be saying the right lyrics and he was saying something else.

As with the Rakim show you described either nobody noticed or nobody cared - perhaps people figured "this is Kool Keith, he has the artistic license to do that". I for one felt scammed (though the truly live> performance of the opening group, Company Flow, made up for it partially). It shocked me that at this day and age when people talk about "keepin it real" and all that, that someone could still get away with that, no matter who he/she is.

Peace,
M_ski

Hi Davey D,

when I read your Article about Rakims performance in Oakland I was really shocked and disappointed. I know that a lot of Rap-Artists use their original album tracks, if they dont't have the instrumentals. Once I saw a show whith Kool Keith and he did the same with some old ULtrmagnetic songs, but you could see that he didn't enjoy it and when he freestyled it was all the way live and worth the money. But the R ?!? I think it's one thing to have FAME and another thing to take a rest on it.

Peace
Da Meista

I haven't been as excited for a show as I was for Rakim's in a long time. And when he came out lip synching (seemed more like quietly rapping) to vocal mixes of everything, I couldn't beleive it! It wrecked it entirely for me. I also couldn't beleive no one there seemed to care. The first thing I thought was that he couldn't dig up instrumentals to his old stuff, but I have most of them on vinyl. Plus, I'd rather hear him rap over new instrumentals than what he was doing.

Just thought I'd let you know my opinion and thank you for all the great newsletters, etc. One question if you have a second to answer. Where's the best place to check for shows in the Bay Area because I can't beleive I just missed Gang Starr somehow (I must have been sleeping). A web page would be best because I just temporarily moved out of San Francisco and it's harder to find out whats going on here.

Thanks!
Mitch

I SAW RAKIM BACK IN NOV. OR DEC. OF '97 IN PITTSBURGH PA. AND HE DID THE SAME THING. I WAS MAD DISSAPOINTED, BECAUSE OF THE FACT THE GOD HAD NEVER DID A SHOW IN PITTSBURGH. THIS SHOW HAD A 12 YEAR BUILD UP TO WERE I THOUGHT IT WAS GOING THE BEST SHOW IN THE WORLD. HE DIDN'T HAVE A LIVE BAND. THE GOD HAD A D.J. WACKER THAN ERIC B. SPININNG, AND ALEAST 5 HYPE MEN AND LEAST 50 OTHER PEOPLE STANDING ON THE STAGE WHILE HE WAS RYHMING OVER THE ORIGINAL TRACK WORD FOR WORD THIS SUCK. THIS MADE ME FEEL THAT THE GOD WAS BACK TO GET THE DOUGH HE NEVER GOT IN '86 AND NOT TO BACK THE ART OF M.C.ING. I FELT I WAS THE ONLY PERSON TO NOTICE THIS BECAUSE THE CROWD WAS GOING BANNANAS. OVER ALL THE SHOW WAS MAD WEAK AND I LEFT WANTING MY $ 20 DOLLARS BACK. I DON'T KNOW BUT COULDN'T HE GET THE INSTRUMENTALS RECORED ON DAT. BUT ANYWAY PEACE KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK.

PEACE
SUN ALLAH

I was at this same show. I was psyched up for a whole week about going to this (I was looping both discs of The 18th Letter as prep). Rakim is special to me, because his rhymes are pure poetry ("rap is rhythm and poetry/cuts create sound effects/you might catch up/if you follow the records he wrecks"), he doesn't swear (because true power, IMNSHO, in language doesn't need it), etc. My whole image was shattered by this concert. My friend said it was like we were listening to the K-tel sampler of Rakim (he would do 2 or 3 verses of his older jams and then go on to the next one).

Like Charles said, from what I could see, he wasn't lip-synching, he was rapping _over_ his old records. But that meant no new verses, no extra breaks, nothing LIVE! The only way he changed up his lyric was to shout "RAKIM" over the old cuts that said "Eric B.", but he was drowning out himself on his old record!

And in between cuts he was swearing left, right and center. It was weird--you expect the R. to come and bring his presence to the show and just flow, but instead you got the same "just throw your hands in the air"/"somebody scream"-type stuff which is more like him trying to fit in then bring himself. My boy said it was like since he was trying to come back, he was over-compensating and not being himself; he had lost his power.I still haven't listened to any more Rakim since then, I feel so burnt. I'm glad I wasn't the only one.

Mark Towfiq

Blessings, Brother. Hannibal Tabu here, a writer for some of the ragz and all that.

According to my crew (who got into the Rakim/Cannibus concert on love I didn't manifest), the R lipsynched at the House of Blues as well. My boy Denzil from brooklyn was heavily depressed about it, my boy Malik from Lost Angeles wrote it off. I was glad I didn't go, hearing that -- I'd have acted a fool.

IMHO, all the fakeness and half stepping in hip hop is disgusting. People are too lazy to take the energy to make a good show -- rehearsals, planning things out, arranging song order in a coherent way, et cetera. I never thought I'd say it, but the R gets the bozack for such a tactic.

Keep up the great work, just wanted to drop that gem on ya.

Hannibal

Dave..

What Pop's, my boy is really tellin' the truth!!! I can't believe that the so called man of the hip hop scene did that shit to all of his fans in the BAY!!! My favorite rapper of all time, I MEAN ALL TIME, was out here side bustin'!!! BULLSHIT DAVE!!! BULLSHIT!!! I hope that we as a storng, diverserce hip hop community here in the BAY, don't let this slide. The Source, 4080, XXL, & Vibe all need to be up on this. If his throat hurt, or he was sick, CANCEL!!! If his contract wouldn't let him, get a new lawer. (There are plenty of good MINOROTY Lawyers in NY) David M. Davis, pass his name to Rakim. My cousin might be able to fit him in. Dave we're behind you 100% to make sure this doesn't slide.

Great E-Mails, keep them up!!!!
Big Kenicy

Dave;

First of all what's up, and I'm diggin this page!

I would have never thought something like this could happen. It was like he (Rakim) spit on us or something. He's still the man, but he defenitly doesn't stand as tall as he did lets say a month ago. If I had seen him in person a while back I would have been hyped trying to get is autograph, shake the man's hand all that. Now if I see him I would be like what's up Rakim. All that to say this, THAT SHIZNIT WAS WACKED

Ezell

"Seeing Rakim do this was like going to heaven and finding out that God smokes crack."

That was the best line I have heard in a long time Davey. If I were there, I would have felt the same way. How could a respectable person cheat his fans like that? Did he forget the words? Has it been that much time between him doing concerts? I heard you discuss this on KMEL and thought you must have been joking but I guess you weren't. Too bad, I'm glad I didn't pay for a ticket.

Ms. Chris Thompson

Yo Dave,

That is too bad about Rakim. I've heard a lot of heads who seen him at shows around here (Boston) say he didn't put on that great of a show either. At least he didn't come back wack on records. He's still a legend to me but if I was at that show with you I would have thought the same thing. You can't feel the intensity over a recorded track at a concert. He should have given an excuse. When I saw the Roots a while back Black Thought was like "I was just at the hospital today so If I don't come off thats why". Rakim could've done the same if something was wrong Anyway I heard it's yours by Tribe...kinda nice the album better hit though or I'm gonna wonder what the fuck is going on with them ...And you are absolutely correct when you say Gang Starr hasn't slipped at all.

Gotta fly son, get back to me
B-1

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