The Roots Picnic ’11
Every year due to trips out of state, lack of funds or summer school, I tend to miss the Legendary Roots Crew's annual festival at Penn's landing. The Roots Picnic is a day long concert with both upcoming and world renound artist performing all day long on two separate stages on Philly's own Festival pier. Fans both young and old come with blankets, shades and an expensive ticket to see the previously declared line ups perform through out the afternoon until... well, until Black Thought is done yelling "Can you dig it?" and Quest Love's drum sticks are quarrelled over after being flung into the ageless gathering of onlookers. Sadly, the line up was not as thorough as last year, but all of the acts that I saw did a great job at holding the stage. Whether it was their first time in front of a crowd of these numbers, or if their nickname was "nasty," mics were rocked as people enjoyed the cool breeze of the Delaware river waterfront. I had my camera throughout the day, so instead of listing the many performances I'm just going to throw up some photos that I captured while raging in the crowd.
The world famous drummer, Quest Love, accompanied many of the performers on his drum set. His on beat head movement was sometimes more entertaining then the artist.
Mr. Rose held it down on stage for all of the camo short weed smokers that attended the show. I can't lie though, I got hype when "In the Cut" was on. But Wiz couldn't hold the Roots-ready Philly crowd stage himself. After calling himself "A real n*gga," the crowd roared as members of the late great Roc-a-fella records walked on stage.
Young Chris and Neef of the Young Gunz reunited to perform their hit single "No Better Love." I yelled, "State Prop!" Like there was an "RW" embroidered on the back of my t-shirt.
The Broadstreet Bully and Philly Freeway romped on stage and performed a couple classics. "Roc the Mic" was a must perform. My mind wondered back to my 5th grade days when this was the go to track of Power 99. I almost hit a slight Harlem shake but someone was looking.
Wiz floated back onto the stage and finished up his set with a couple of tracks from his latest mixtape.
Peedi Crack (or is it Peedi Peedi?), made his way on stage during a medley of tracks performed by the Roots, and yes, he made it go "rling."
The moment I was waiting for. Nasir Jones, the Legend, the career ender, the role model for all of the MCs that call themselves MCs. He smoothly, toed his way on stage as the roots foreshadowed his arrival by playing a live band instrumental of "Get Down," from the God's Son album. With a double part swirled to the top of his dome, translucent shades and a slight smirk, Nastrodamous went in like this was his 9,000th time on stage. Quest Love remained on the drums during the whole Nas set as the Legends filled the city soundwaves with original, well-recognized lyrics and ferocious acoustics.
What suprised me the most was the number of tracks Prince Escobar did off of Illmatic, and other early albums. The only thing missing from the stage was the actual gun shots from "Made you look," and the one of a kind vocals of the soulful Lauryn hill. "If I ruled the woooooorld..." the festival pier recited as we filled in one of the more famous hooks for the larger than life MC.
When Mr. Jones was finshed he said, "thank you" and saluted the crowd as he bopped backstage knowing that he put on a show that would satisfy a true self proclaimed "hip-hop head."
The roots then took control of the stage again as Black thought took the mic and used strong sharp lyrics to put it to slow, painful death. The Roots reclaimed the show and made sure that everyone there understood that this was their picnic. Philly showed their world famous natives the love they deserved as they remixed classics, and consistantly made the crowd think the show was over. The entire band played their parts to perfection and line danced their way into the minds of every one at the concert. They planted a small seed in the heads of all, that will sprout next year when the performance line up is announced. This small seed will then remind fans to come back next year. Long live the Roots Crew.
