Little Brother: Live in Toronto… The Review

I decided to flex my newly acquired media access muscle for this show on a chilly Sunday night in Downtown Toronto. The venue was quite small, but cozy considering no one felt like showing up for the 9 o’clock show start. Big ups to The MOD Club for holding it down, they did a fantastic job with it. REMG promoted the show and they usually always throw down the best hip hop jams in Toronto and always bring in the acts other promoters may have not even heard of.

Hero, a group I’m still too unfamiliar with to drop knowledge of, consisted of 2 lead male artist, one rapper and one singer, a DJ and 2 backup singers. The opening act job is one of the hardest jobs in the biz to do. The crowd wasn’t really moving too much, but what can you do? They gave 100% like any opening act should because the main attraction tonight was an opening act only about 5-6 years ago. Nevertheless, DJ Wristpect (who was handing out tons of free CDs) dropped his 3rd volume of the “Bridging the Gap” series (www.myspace.com/djwristpect). He did extremely well to hold the crowd down; I pretty much lost my voice by then; rapping old tracks.

DJ Flash came on to introduce the two dopest boys in a Nissan Altima. ‘Te and Pooh kicked things off with “Can’t Stop Us” and got the crowd into it early. They followed up with “Cool as a Fan” just before they kicked it into overdrive with “Sirens.” It was a dope opening and one really can’t expect anything more. The set list got a little cloudy for me by that point, but I can assure you they touched on tons of Getback stuff, plenty of Minstrel Show goodies and even “Speed” and “The Way You Do It” from their debut. “Life of the Party” and “Lovin It” seemed to get the biggest roars while “Slow it Down” had every one swaying from side to side. Because they weren’t here to promote any new material, they performed pretty much the same show and even the same skits/speeches in between songs minus Darien Brockington (according to sources). Regardless, there were plenty of LB virgins in the crowd to enjoy every aspect of the show, and even the second comers got another helping of great live hip hop.

Pooh walked through the crowd a bunch of times and even rapped there for about 2 songs. Phonte held down the stage and he even had a funeral for it. They indeed killed it. The main spotlight has got to be given to Mr. Coleman. This man is an entertainer in its purest form. He made the crowd feel like the third member, but moreover, like a brother or sister or a homie that he normally shoots the shit with. It was refreshing to see someone who is still so humble and personal like that with the array of talent that he has. Pooh is much quieter, but always wears that large grin.

Both artist chilled and chatted with the fans after the show to sign autographs and take pictures and such. Of course, you know, they were both ridiculously intrigued by T Dot’s finest ladies. The merch table contained all of their work, but the usually great T-shirts and paraphernalia were limited to a “Fuck Corporate” T-shirt. Dope, just not family friendly.

In a Little Brother show, you get one of today’s best hip hop acts giving it to you raw and uncut. They indeed are as live as everyone has claimed and Phonte might be one of the best live performers I’ve ever seen. In a Little Brother show, you also get a comedy round, you get an R&B performance, you get a little Dr. Phil, you get some jump in that step and you get some amazing hip hop that sounds as good as it does live as it does on the CD. If they are rolling around your town, they are certainly worth the price of admission.

P.S. I had a quick 5 second chat with Big Pooh last night… he said the new album is coming out in February.