Black Milk, Elzhi & DJ House Shoes Live in Toronto

First and foremost, big shout outs to Trevor over at Koch Records for being the best man amongst the best men. He gave me the hook up of “Tronic” and “The Preface” both signed and free passes to the show. Big ups to the contest winners, Kaveesh & Michael who got the same hook up. Once again, without Trev, my coverage and experience would not have been possible. Sorry to those who missed out, hopefully I’ll have more contests to bring to you.

The show was held at Revival Lounge, dope spot and a little crowded early on. DJ House Shoes, a hugely successful DJ out of Detroit came out around 11 and dropped non-stop Detroit hip hop. I have never heard so much Dilla all at once. It was dope and the crowd was moving and digging joints from Guilty Simpson, Frank-n-Dank, Slum Village (old and new) and Phat Kat. He had a small bottle of Henny up on stage with him though… keep this in mind.

Elzhi came out on stage and seemingly entered Disneyland. Always wearing a huge smile on his face, he looked like a kid having so much fun up there. Nevertheless, his skills on the mic are no myth; it is scary how easy he makes it look. He effortlessly went through his ridiculously complex verses on “Goatit”, “Motown 25,” and a surprising drop of “Hiding Place.” He displayed some Canadian content by bringing up Ayah on stage to perform her part on “The Leak” and she showed off her great voice. “Colours” and “Guessing Game” are even more impressive live, while “Hands Up” got one of the best reactions of the night. The Black Milk beats banged hard, still, Elzhi over powered them, just like he does on pretty much everything else. Dope performance.

But, remember what I said about House Shoes and his liquid courage? It led to a bunch of mess ups. His timing was off; he was playing tracks too early, thus, giving up surprises. Elzhi had to tell him what to do at times, it was slightly embarrassing for House Shoes and the flow of the performance could’ve been greatly damaged. It didn’t end there. More later.

Black Milk came out almost immediately after Elzhi and the piano for “Long Story Short” came on and the drums tore the roof off of Revival. Black has tons of energy and he displayed this on performances of “Shut It Down,” “So Gone” and “Give the Drummer Sum.” He had the crowd saying “hell yeah” so much all night that he eventually had to perform the track off of “Tronic.” He brought up Colin Munroe, who’s from Toronto, to perform the chorus on “Without U.” It was a weird move and the timing was evidently off. Poor Colin was left up there wagging around the microphone stand repeating the same lines over and over and over…and over again. He brought out Elzhi for the jolt of energy on “Action,” another one of his more popular tracks.

The most impressive part of the show was when Black got behind his weapon of choice, the beat machine, and developed “The Matrix” beat from scratch briefly before the original kicked in. The crowd went nuts, especially for the Premier-cut chorus. Another high point for the concert was Black Milk’s rendition of “Raise It Up,” in which he imitates Dilla word for word superbly. It also got the crowd ridiculously hype.

Unfortunately, timing again was an issue with House Shoes. The climax of “Sound the Alarm” was temporary; the DJ thought it was only going to be a one verse joint, and Black had other intentions. It began to get very messy towards the end and no one was in sync. There was a point where Black’s back was to the crowd for a good 5 minutes straight, a minor gripe, but, I thought that was bad stage-etiquette.

It was very dope for Black to bring out aspiring MC’s on stage while he got on the beat machine for them to freestyle towards the end. Toronto, also known as the Screwface Capitol, began booing their own MC’s. The night was getting late and it began to get disoriented and even a tad bit unprofessional. Black held his own though; the dude is a threat as a live performer and you can certainly add it to his already impressive resume.

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