Duo the Sick aka Frankie Flowers

On a crisp, cool evening in Oklahoma City after the Thunder fell to the L.A. Clippers at the Ford Center I had the pleasure of watching one of the most lyrically gifted emcees to ever touch down in our budding metropolis.  Killah Priest of Wu-Tang fame ended his 30 date tour at the Conservatory joined by members of the Oklahoma hip hop organization “Puzzle People.”

I can’t lie, I was disappointed with the turn out, I know Sundays are rough for working people, but c’mon son…It was Killah Priest!  Whether it be promotion or lack of interest that had the club barely full, it is still good to see the people I see at most shows I’m at, and it has me wishin’ I could be at them all.  Maybe my five to fifteen dollars won’t make a difference in the long run, but I don’t ever want to think I didn’t try.

After making my rounds and greeting some other OKC emcee’s, I picked up a copy of L.T.Z.’s “Best on Mars” and Addlib’s “Soul on Wax.”  DJ Jafar was spinning records and shortly thereafter Duo the Sick took the stage to start the show.

Whether or not we’ll ever see an album/mixtape/release from Duo remains to be seen, but you can’t help but be drawn in by his stage presence and he, in my opinion,  is probably the most skilled emcee in Oklahoma.  Duo ran through a few of his performance standards with a rather short set but still played to the crowd like it was a packed coliseum.

ADDLib rocks the Conservatory

Almost seamlessly the show moved right to a performance by puzzle person Addlib.  Addlib breezed through his set with a cocky swagger that made his lyricism seem almost effortless.  At times, it seemed like he didn’t even care to be up there, just going through the motions of a performance to a less than capacity crowd.  Most introductions started with “this is a song about a girl, ’cause that’s what I do.”

“pause?,” inquired an audience member.

“no pause.”

I haven’t had a chance to give “Soul on Wax” a good listen yet, but I hear aDDLib and Jabee are working on Black Cotton II, if you don’t have the first installment grab it here.

One of my favorite artists from the City, who I also have done a fair amount of design work for, Chris McCain took the stage next.  I feel like Chris is trapped in limbo, like myself, a lot.  Trapped between a being strictly a street rapper who’s wordplay gets lost in that crowd or being a lyricist who’s content may be a bit too street for hip hop heads.

McCain’s performance was really dope to me, and he came with some excellent freestyles during the cipher that started before Killah Priest took the stage.  I look forward to his “Will Rogers’ Airport” CD coming soon.

Chris McCain @ the Conservatory

After Chris McCain left the stage, Jabee kept the crowd moving in proper fashion.  I’ve always been fascinated with Jabee’s live performance, I think if he weren’t an emcee, he would be a great motivational speaker or pastor.  Performing tracks with both Duo the Sick and L.T.Z., Jabee had one of the best performances of the night.

Up until recently I thought Jabee’s recorded material failed to capture his essence, but I really must say, you need to listen to the track ‘Blood’ produced by theARE.  Everything about this track is right to me from beat to lyrics to delivery.  Oh I can’t forget about the single’s artwork done by the incredibly talented MichaelManasseh of SoulMana.com.

Killa Priest’s DJ for this tour was Austin, TX DJ and Graphic Designer, DJ Notion.  After Jabee finished his and they prepped for Killah Priest to close out the show, Jabee announced that Notion was going to spin some instrumentals and emcees should jump in a cipher.  He even called me out from in front of the stage which I thought was very cool.

The cipher was deep but undoubtedly controlled by Nemesis.  When an emcee like Duo comes on the stage and rips through a verse only to say “here you can have this [microphone], you got this,” you know that he’s a talented cat.

Jabee @ the Conservatory

Some of the other emcees who took the stage included Beetyman, L.T.Z., Chris McCain, and the old singer from the OKC punk band Herpeez.  I hurried through a quick sixteen bars and scurried to the side of the stage to watch the guys from HAYBI really put it down.

Killah Priest hit the stage with a voice that sounded both worn down from touring and maybe a little bit of a cold.  Introduced as one of Duo’s “Top 5 lyricists,” KP may have just as well let the crowd do the lyrics so he could save his raspy voice.

The crowd loved him rocking verses from the GZA/RZA CD “Liquid Swords” and he took us “back to ‘98″ quite a bit.  He also gave it up to fellow Wu-Tang member Ol’ Dirty Bastard who’s birthday fell on the day of this concert.  He started a song from ODB’s “return to the 36 Chambers” album, and the crowd finished it.  Beautiful.

Killah Priest

Despite the small audience, KP played well to the crowd and spit a lot of knowledge.  He’s a vivid story teller and I could imagine his verses coming to life in my mind.  In particular, he was speaking about having  a scooter, now this image was humorous to me at first because KP is a big guy (pause), but then he talked about the wheels transforming to horses and the scooter itself becoming a chariot.  I don’t know why this stuck out in my mind, but it did, along with the songs “From Then Till Now” and of course “B.I.B.L.E.”

The show finished up with another cipher as Killah Priest left the stage.   A few more emcee’s took the stage this time around, and I chatted with Jim from the venue a little bit before heading back home.  I had a great time and hope to see more classic emcees perform in our little-big-city.