I hope to bring the thread back up again.. my excuse? to give a reply :)

>No doubt there are'nt that many
>hip-hoppers in Helsinki compared with
>the likes of Germany etc,
>but he still manages to
>perform this far north. 4
>the luv. I was at
>his Helsinki performance spreading luv
>in my own way.

hehehe.. i am glad he came to finland as well. I thought hiphop had a pretty big hiphop scene, a friend even let me hear a finnish song. Glad it wasnt just you and maowey(?!) :)

>When
>i entered the joint Grand
>Agent was rocking the crowd
>(do i hear about to
>blow up??) A couple of
>straight faced europeans were standing
>in pretty much the same
>way your African aquaintance was.

mmhh, it is a certain type of personality. Who is grand agent really? I stood next to his wife who videotaped him, so i guess it must have been one of his first big tours :) He was good thou

>I put them at ease
>by sharing a drink (coke)
>with them cuz we were
>all hot & thirsty &
>common had'nt even hit the
>stage. What followed can only
>be experienced, not explained.

Yes, true.. like a bomb is the closest. Common left a very solid impression, he was even more than i thought he would be. More common than what i imagined from the cd's, his message even clearer!

>I ended up on stage (making
>a fool of myself with
>whack rhymes) but for a
>moment i felt what it
>was like to be in
>his shoes.


Heheheh, almost like my brother.. just that my brother said no. I'm glad for you you got up there thou, must have been an experience.

>Anyway, of late i've been having
>a hard time enjoying overground
>hip-hop cuz of its shallowness.

You are not alone feeling that. Not only american, but even more norwegian (perhaps finnish as well). They become a parody of themselves, a parody of hiphop! That is a shame, when they still sell good..

But i feel that common follows the chineese philosophy of "following the golden middle route".. i have also heard about what they call norway's new hiphop prince, salvador. From what i have heard he saying he is closer to okayartists than to certain others, he even went to say he believes hiphop is dead with just few exceptions.

>I know music is meant
>to entertain, but where I'm
>from, music hides a message
>within the entertainment it provides.
>Tanzanian Taarab (poetic music) is
>laced with hidden meanings and
>part of the enjoyment of
>it lies in deciphering what
>the artist is trying to
>convey beyond the obvious lyrics.

That reminded me, i used to think music was supposed to hide a message. I am sure i have known one music style which had that, perhaps my father's Bob Dylland and Lehonard Cohen. But that thought must have disappeared deep inside my head, because now very little western music is so. Commercial hiphop as well.. the message is being misused so much we start ignoring the message and instead talk about how the flow or beat is ;)

The day i hear hiphop with influences from a different new music culture, i will listen close to it! (Most western styles have been used before.. classic, jazz, soul, reggae, blues, country. Different has to be good, it cant hurt trying.) Heard bisso na bisso? :) French-Congo, the use of qua-qua and.. very special!.. It would never hurt to try to bring in something as Tanzanian Taarab. Ehm.. from what i know... the little you told me (poetic music with hidden meaning). But an inner voice tells me it should take it a step further, i would listen close to it if someone would use it.

peace