LIVE: MOBB DEEP @ THE HI-FI

This is the 20th anniversary of the album that made Mobb Deep famous. Fans in Brisbane were pissed when dates released originally missed Brisbane. The situation rectified, police are nonetheless stationed outside the gig – tonight the Hi-Fi is hosting real hip-hop.

MOBB DEEP Live @ The Hi-Fi, BNE – Sunday 12th April, 2015 Supports: Fundamental Elements (BNE), Dwizofoz (BNE).

Words by RIP NICHOLSON Live Image by Terry Soo

For Street Press Australia & Rip2Shredz Press

Before Queensbridge’s nastiest duo take over, the River City’s supports bring their A-game. Fundamental Elements step out with DJ Johnny Love on the wheels and drop some of that classic boom bap that has most heads in the building ready to nod to tracks ‘Independent’ and ‘6 Feet Deep’, the latter off their new EP, The Prerequisite. After a short and sweet set, Brisbane’s hungriest MC, Dwiz of Oz comes out hard spittin’ fully automatic bars with DJ Immaculate behind him. He does his best to stamp his sincere commitment to the religion of solid hip hop, even if scares the front row. He slams out his set feeling the anxious tension mounting for Mobb Deep and ends by inviting the Grime Connoisseurs and some of his 469 collective to tear up a cypher. DJ SkiBeatz spins the interlude and out of almost nowhere Prodigy and Havoc –Mobb Deep – stroll out and start the show.

They open with 2011’s ‘Dead Man Shoes’ before stomping out tracks off The Infamous anniversary album, with ‘Survival Of The Fittest’ and ‘Give Up The Goods’ and mixing up the setlist with new shit, ‘Say Something’, and some forgotten G-Unit club bangers. But for the final show of a long distance tour for two Queens, NYC MCs celebrating their second album from 20 years ago, they look tired.

They tear through their set in a routine fashion, though they never miss a beat, snapping bars back and forth, keeping it low on the call-and-response for “Bris-baane” (international artist pronunciation) and feeding punters that solid uncut boom-bap hip hop we grew up on. Havoc provides plenty of warning to hold onto your drinks and your woman because it could get wild when they drop ‘Shook Ones Pt. II’ to close the night – which may have been true had the house been packed. Still, a dope night for real heads of hip-hop.