10:52pm Decem­ber 7, as we drive down the Gard­ner Express­way approach­ing Spad­ina, we were sure we’d be late, and miss the first cou­ple songs of the show I’ve been wait­ing to see since ’09.  The open­ing acts are on now for sure, The Free­dom Writes and Tona, get­ting the crowd hyped up or so I thought.  We arrived at the Great Hall at just about 11pm, no lineup and hardly a crowd out­side, we walked in and gladly payed the $25 cover.  As we entered the venue, the Free­dom Writ­ers were in full swing, the bass was heavy and the lyrics were hard to hear, not a good sign.  The strangest part to me was how bright it was inside.  The stage was lit up in usual fash­ion, but the floor was bright as hell (for a con­cert)!  It was about as bright as a movie the­ater befroe the pre­views start, light­ing on the wall but noth­ing major.  Truth be told I didn’t mind it, 2 things I hate about clubs and con­certs is not being able to see all around and hav­ing to scream at friends to tell them how great a time i’m hav­ing (a sign of my cough old age for sure!) After scan­ning the floor, it’s easy to tell that it’s far from a packed house tonight.  Theres maybe 300 peo­ple on the main level and another 25 cir­cling the bal­cony above.  This is odd to me, I mean this man is 10 albums deep, raised in Brook­lyn along­side Big­gie and Jay-Z, and he’s the only guest rap­per on Ill­matic for fuck sakes!  The most under­rated MC of all time is about to hit the stage, and not even 500 heads!?  To me, see­ing AZ is the equiv­a­lent of a rock lover see­ing Radio­head — they aren’t the Cold­play of their genre but they’re still one of the best that’s ever done it.

It was 11:30pm when TFW fin­ished up, and they had barely left the stage before the DJ took the mic to find out if we were “ready to see AZ!?”  Then, boom! Out comes AZ Sosa, solo, rockin a Ver­sace USA themed crew­neck, Gucci belt, baggy jeans and Tims, and spit­ting line after line of one of my favorite tracks “I’m Back”.  The odd atmos­phere con­tin­ued through­out his set.  No weed smoke, but if some­one did light up secu­rity was right there to put an end to the shanan­ni­gans, and they had no prob­lem spot­ting the pot heads with the damn lights so bright!  So on it went, he reached deep into his bag of songs all the way back to Doe or Die from ’95, spit­ting clas­sics like Sugar Hill and the Grammy nom­i­nated “The Essence” minus his co-conspirator Nas (I was dis­ap­pointed Esco didn’t make an appear­ance).  AZ is a tricky solo artist.  His rhymes are undoubt­edly top notch, yet his only main­stream suc­cess came from his first album, the rest just act­ing as show­cas­ing for his rhyme tal­ent.  I’d say most of his best verses are on tracks with guest appear­ances, or those that he’s rap­ping along­side some­one, so when he’s live audi­ences get a lot of one verse record switch­ing.  I found myself anx­iously await­ing any one of the many big names he’s rapped with to come out at any time, but no such luck.

I hyped this show up tons, drove an hour or more to the venue, and once there I got to hear live, some of my favorite bangers by the most under­rated MC of all time, and, I didn’t have to put up with a bunch of 16 year old “hip hop heads” read­ing lyrics off their iPhone to keep up!  It had been a while since my last rap con­cert, and nowa­days I almost pre­fer bang­ing hits at home with a 6 pack and some friends, but this vibe was dif­fer­ent and I liked it.  Although, from a typ­i­cal con­cert hall per­spec­tive, the Radio­head of rap might have been dis­ap­pointed, and it seemed like the show wasn’t planned or pro­moted, and that makes me won­der.  If you go back just 4 years, same artist, same type of venue there were 1000 rag­ing fans scream­ing lyrics only they know, grasp­ing AZ like he was the rea­son they love rap.  4 years ago, hmmm.

Was this AZ show a sign of the times?  Are the tides turn­ing (not in a good way) for 90’s hip hop — the brand of music that bred so many cur­rent MC’s and artists, and intro­duced us to the lav­ish lifestyle we all yearn for sub­con­ciously?  I mean I’m 33, and when I talk about Wu-Tang with my 20 year old cousins I almost get a “Who-Tang?”  When I log onto Face­book, all I see are firends with new­borns, and pic­tures of new homes and new fam­i­lies grow­ing.  So then, were all the AZ fans at home chang­ing dia­pers?  Or too tired to reach out on a Fri­day night because it was a busy week at the office?  I know it’s been get­ting harder and harder to find out­lets that show­case the rare gems that bred a gen­er­a­tion, but repect must be paid to those who laid the ground­work.  Fuck it’s scary get­ting older!

Am I crazy?  Was this just a one off expe­ri­ence?  Let me know what you think below.