DE LA SOUL ::

DE LA SOUL
arena / vienna, austria
12th september 2005

'hey, how you doin'? sorry you can't get through. why don't you leave your name and your number and i'll get back to you.'

or maybe this one

'when we talkin' 'bout the vibes... vibrations... stakes is high! higher than high! you know them stakes is high!'

or this one here

'mirror, mirror on the wall, tell me mirror, what is wrong? can it be my de la clothes or is it just my de la soul? what i do ain't make-believe. people say i sit and try but when it comes to being de la it's just me, myself and i. it's just me, myself and i'

or how about this

'it ain't all good and that's the truth. things ain't goin' like you think they should. it's all on you.'

and a final one

'put your hands opposite to the ground if you're lovin' our sound. go oooh, oooh, oooh, oooh! and to my broke niggas on the corner holdin' me down. go oooh, oooh, oooh, oooh!' (as rapped by REDMAN).

who doesn't know some or maybe all of these lines? eh? right. thought so. EVERYBODY knows DE LA SOUL. and i finally got to see them live! wooooooooooot!

what can i tell ya? party all around! maseo (a.k.a. pasemaster mase) warmed up the crowd with some A TRIBE CALLED QUEST tunes and then posdnuos and dove (a.k.a. trugoy the dove) joined in and let it rip. i usually avoid hip hop concerts, because in general the people going to the regular hip hop concerts just aren't my cup of coffee. too much competitiveness, too much on display all the time. but with DE LA SOUL it was all real. no hype, no boasting, no nothing. a mixed crowd of people that just loved to go down to hip hop music. lovely. it's really hard to describe what was going on at the gig, because it was all spontanous, with some good laughs and a great overall feeling. DE LA SOUL were enjoying themselves and the people were enjoying themselves. it's been a long time that i kept on smiling throughout an entire concert and even danced a little bit. there you go. DE LA SOUL made me dance. if that isn't proof of quality, then i don't know what is. at one point dove started with some strange 'fellas go 'ugh!' and ladies go 'eaoow!'' shit and then he asked the women to get up on the stage. he asked more and more of them on stage, until the filled it up. and then he got us by the balls (or ovaries). he asked the women who wouldn't come up on stage why they're scared and if they think that getting on stage with a hip hop band meant that they are hos or groupies? and of course he said that it didn't mean either. you're not a ho if you don't want to be and you're not a groupie if you don't want to be. two very smart things he said: 'hip hop has fucked up your mind!' and 'you are trapping yourself.' and he is right on both accounts. mainstream hip hop is always going about with that sexist crap, stigmatizing the entire genre. and us boys and girls start to associate these things and turn out to be scared to go on stage with DE LA SOUL and party. so, it might've been a bit lukewarm preaching, but in general his points are obvious and definitely worth thinking about.
anyway, the show was great. i already miss it. looking forward to the next DE LA SOUL gig. oh, by the way, if you want to read up on DE LA SOUL you can do so on the spitkickers site for DE LA SOUL or at the respective allmusic.com DE LA SOUL pages. couldn't find an official homepage.