Rock The Bells: Rocking Miami with Hip-Hop
Bayfront Park
Downtown Miami
Story and Photos by Michael Hernandez
In August, Guerilla Union’s nationwide Rock The Bells tour made its stop in Miami at The Bayfront Park Amphitheater. It is arguably the quintessential hip-hop event of the year, spanning two decades of artists from A Tribe Called Quest to The Cool Kids.
The sweltering heat of that day, as well as a nearly hour-long wait in line for tickets, did not stop the crowd from enjoying what is surely going to be remembered as one of the best shows of 2008.
M-1 and Stic Man of Dead Prez
With one stage to share, the crowd surrounded the center of the amphitheater, which blasted power-thumping bass lines that shook the very ground you stood on. The day started off slow, with some of the indie acts having to cancel their performance due to time constraints, but things finally came to life when Dead Prez kicked off their set.
Everyone had their hands up in the air, pounding their fists towards the sky, going along with the "F**k The Police!" banter that Dead Prez is known for. One moment that stuck out to me was when stic.man chuckled as the crowd raised their fists in the air and rapped the line "I’m down for runnin’ up on them crackers in they city hall" from their well-known song "Hip-hop": The crowd in the front was mostly white.
Their stage presence was one of the best of the show, but it was early on, and the crowd was just starting to fill Bayfront, so it was just enough to set the mood for what was about to get them completely jacked.
De La Soul
Soon after, hip-hop veterans De La Soul took the stage, playing tracks like "Oooh" (minus Redman) and "Whatever Happened (To the MC)" and finishing strong with "Rock Co.Kane Flow."
The Best-Of members of the Wu-Tang Clan then took stage, first with Ghostface Killah and Raekwon sharing a stage, later following the ever-so popular duo of Method Man and Redman. These members of the Wu-Tang are still able to make their older ’90s tracks sound fresh with their on-stage swagger on stage and rhyming skills.
Mos Def also performed and delivered words of wisdom to people, like to not "take pictures with me if you see me in person," while delving into his own ego most of the time.
The performance that caught me off guard the most was when The Pharcyde reunited on stage, and not because of Pharcyde. The crowd was racially eclectic and made up of a lot of younger people who probably attended Rock The Bells because of word of mouth that it was the hip-hop event you couldn’t miss. Some would say it’s the ’90s revisited, that it takes old school hip-hop artists to make modern hip-hop relevant.
The Pharcyde
Seeing The Pharcyde perform was great too, as they have remained fresh and vibrant and performed with strong energy as they demonstrated on stage with "Runnin"; it was just too bad that most of the crowd had no idea who The Pharcyde was, and that’s a shame because they really deserved a better crowd than what they got.
However, for most people, Nas was the one most people had clamored to see and he did not disappoint. Coming on stage to his new single "Hero," Nasir Jones asked people "How about we take a trip back through time?" He went on to flip through his catalogue of music like a schizophrenic jukebox, doing a verse and hook from one song and then switching to the next. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone rap so consistently without taking a break, and he was on stage for a better part of an hour, which made for a solid showing for Nas. Then A Tribe Called Quest came on stage, which was great to see live, but I could tell from afar that most of the crowd was too tired to start getting into the music.
Rock The Bells was able to blend the old and the new and tried to make hip-hop relevant. With new up and coming indie acts to classic MCs, Rock The Bells catered to large disparity in demographic, but at times the crowd didn’t get it. Still, fans of any of these acts would enjoy the show and shouldn’t miss hip-hop’s best show next year.
Let us know what you think at: outloud@outloud.com.
Dead Prez
M-1 of Dead Prez
Stic Man of Dead Prez