BrightestYoungThings: LiveDC: Big Boi @ 930 Club

all words and photos: Mitchell London

Before Big Boi AKA Daddy Fat Sax AKA Francis the Savannah Chitlin Pimp jumped onstage, there were a number of things that were distinctly off about the event. First, the show - headlined by someone who has sold over 40 million records and just released a critically revered, genre-bending, party-starting masterpiece - was not advertised anywhere. Not on Big Boi’s site or his MySpace, not on his Tour Date press release, not on the BYThings. The only place that I could find it was on the 9:30 Club site.* Perhaps for this reason, perhaps for lunar-alignment reasons, the show was not sold out.

Upon hearing this, I briefly entertained the notion that it was not, in fact, a Big Boi show; that I had been duped into attending a concert led by Big Boy And His Honky Tonk Olde Time Review, or someone other than General Patton AKA Big Boi AKA Sir Lucious Leftfoot. Also, opening for this rap behemoth was a band that I had never heard of before and who don’t have a Wikipedia page. Which was fishy-smelling, at best.

Miguel:
When I watch LeBron James put his left shoulder down, charge the lane, and make the entire Wizards defense look stupid, my first thought is “damn, this guy is good at basketball.” Though its undeniable, the initial thought is quickly overpowered by the second: “damn, this guy is younger than me.” It’s something I have to get used to, I know, but I hate it.

So when Miguel showed up onstage with nothing more than a bass guitar and a laptop, looking like they had just ditched the last half of their Blade Runner-themed junior prom to go mack on some freshmen in an undisclosed alleyway, I was prepared to hate them. At the risk of sounding like a TV Grandfather, they looked too young to appreciate Big Boi, much less open for him.

But they opened their set like they had something to prove. Their first song robotic high-drama piece that featured synchronized dance moves between singer and bass player. For their second song, the singer ditched his cyborg formal-wear and summoned the soul of Prince and Curtis Mayfield’s secret genome project for an uptempo number. I was a believer. I’m always interested to see bands combine electronic and trad-rock set-ups, and these guys do it pretty well. The beats lean electronic, but Miguel’s heart is thoroughly drenched in 1960’s style soul and showmanship.

During the third song, the wheels slipped slightly off-track. Midway through the song, the singer kicked out the cord connecting his computer to the PA, so the crowd endured about 2 minutes too many of the impromptu acapella version of “Strawberry Amazing.” Their last song was similarly awkward, with the singer belting the line “I don’t want to be loved” over a lonely bassline for an uncomfortable amount of time.

Like LeBron, Miguel works best on the fast break. And while they aren’t playing near the LeBron level yet, their youth, energy, and raw talent make them a group to watch.

Big Boi AKA West Savannah Manny AKA Billy Ocean:

In the year 2000, Big Boi seemed like a needless addition to the Andre 3000 show, like Phife to Q-Tip. Someone to ground the muse in reality. Ten years later, that way of thinking has been utterly annihilated. Both of his solo affairs, Speakerboxx and Sir Lucious Leftfoot: The Son of Chico Dusty display his razor-sharp lyrical wit and playfulness, but more importantly, they highlight a willingness to continue pushing the conventions of rap music. Speakerboxx overflows with fast-paced bass-heavy tunes, signaling the wave of dance-rap soon to follow. Likewise, Sir Lucious Leftfoot bases it’s sound on 80’s synths and sensibilities, but stirs the pot with unlikely acoustic flourishes and strong R&B hooks from Janelle Monae, Sleepy Brown, and Jamie Foxx.

When I spoke with him in July, I mentioned that the sound of SLL:TSOCD was miles away from the southern-fried beats of early Outkast. I asked him if regional rap was dead. He answered that artists can’t remained locked in a box; they have to keep exploring their instruments and sounds until they find something that they get excited about. And that’s what Sir Lucious Leftfoot sounds like. It sounds excited.

He retains that excitement in his live show, hustling from stage left to stage right like an unleashed pitbull with the scent of bacon in the air. Other than that (and the fact that he asked the crowd for - and received - a bag of weed during an interlude), the show was pretty safe. It stuck almost entirely to singles and old favorites. Thankfully, the crowd showed at about the same time as Hot Tub Tony AKA The Son of Chico Dusty, so he had plenty of people there to rap along with him.

With such an impressive and deep back-catalog, Big Boi could have phoned it in, but he delivered the hits with consistently high energy. He gets some points docked for ditching his backup band (the last time I saw him, he had horns and a bass) and picking ironically rhythmically-challenged female volunteer dancers for “I Like The Way You Move,” but all-in-all, the set was exactly what we in the audience were banking on. I personally am convinced that his hype man C-Bone was there as a strident reminder that most rappers are not progressive and forward-thinking. But Big Boi is, and though his set wasn’t particularly adventurous, it was thoroughly enjoyable.

Big Boi Setlist:
Atliens/ Aquemini Mix
Rosa Parks
So Fresh and So Clean
Ms. Jackson
General Patton
Follow Us
Daddy Fat Sax
I Like the Way You Move
Ghettomusick
Bombs over Baghdad
-C Bone Interlude 1: Empire Strikes Back-
Players Ball
Elevators
Shine Blockas
Fo Yo Sorrows/ marijuana proposition
Shutterbug
-C Bone Interlude 2: Kryptonite -
- Encore -
Do You Really Want to Know About Some Gangsta Shit?
You Ain’t No DJ

* I’m sure it was on the Post, but I have been thoroughly warned against trusting the Lame Steam Media.

Previously in Live DC:

2 years ago Daddy phat sacks said

"In the year 2000, Big Boi seemed like a needless addition to the Andre 3000 show, like Phife to Q-Tip. Someone to ground the muse in reality." Not really, he's been major ever since Southernplayalistic in 93'. Always steady, but growing, and not making albums suffer from his own Prince indulgences. For someone who hopped on board during Hey Ya, maybe that would seem the case. Not saying you did, just sayin'. As for Southern fried beats of earlier Outkast, I don't find early Outkast or Goodie Mob beats to be remotely similar to the typical southern styles that came about in the mid 90's. Organized Noize was wholly new and different.

2 years ago GMLjr said

161854 @Daddy phat sacks: I think you make a good point; the quoted line comes more from the time I saw the B.O.B where 3000 was running around on purple outerspace grass with a bunch of little kids and Big Boi was doing standard rapper stuff. One guy: breaking the mold; the other guy: swimming in it. This is reductive thinking, I know, and it's far from the nuance that has always defined these guys, but it was more of a clumsy set up to the general point: Big Boi is killing it nowadays.

I also agree to your point about Organized Noize - they were a revelation in any scene. Again, the point here was a little more general: SouthernPlayalistic... found Outkast filling out traditional genre roles: pimps, drug dealers, etc. - the beats, I think, were a little more confined to fit that genre (though still awesome, I'll agree). As they got better, they grew more comfortable picking out sounds and beats that fulfill a bigger, weirder vision.