Nappy Roots energizes at Fall hip hop show

Dewick-MacPhie was full of bopping heads and hip-hopping performers Thursday night, as Iron Mic, Turbo, Kenny Muhammad and the six members of Nappy Roots went all-out for their fans despite coming on stage much later than scheduled.

Prior to the show, free CD's were handed out at the Campus Center to hype the band's popularity on campus. Senior Rah-nee Kelly came because she "liked them before they were on MTV _ and I like to dance," while Amy Aquino-Thomas had seen them on Black Entertainment Television (BET) and decided to take advantage of a live performance.

The best parts of the evening came in flashes, like the little flickers of light that Nappy Roots asked the audience to show as solidarity for all those who had died in the hip-hop world in the past few years ("Do y'all miss Aaliyah? Tupac Shakur? Jam Master Jay?").

Kenny Muhammad, who kept the audience entertained by doing beats with his mouth _ what he calls a "scientific expression of vocal compression." Practicing a performance technique known as "beat-boxing," he could re-mix echo effects, techno, reggae and _ according to Kelly _ a little bit of James Brown brand of 70's funk.

Muhammad could start off slow, decompose a beat, then speed up into a reggae sound and back down to an echoing techno re-mix _ all by puffing out his cheeks and manipulating his breath.

Amazingly, he does not get tired when "beat-boxing." Muhammad said it was like "therapy for my body."

After Muhammad's performance, however, the evening seemed to stretch into overtime due to some unforeseen circumstances which delayed the beginning of Nappy Roots' set. One Concert Board member cited the fact that Kenny Muhammad's escort got lost and had to call the Tufts University Police Department (TUPD). Another possible cause for the delay was that a girl who had been travelling with the headliner band needed medical attention and they were awaiting the arrival of an ambulance.

At 11:10 pm, more than half an hour after Kenny Muhammad had exited, Nappy Roots still had not gone onstage. The DJ tried to keep up the audience's energy, jamming with R&B songs of past seasons _ spicing up Nelly's "It's Getting Hot in Here" and others _ however, the loyal fans in the audience held out to see the highlight of the night.

Though 'the Roots' (as everyone called them) came on late, they were in no way tired out. They kept the crowd jumping in-between songs by asking the audience "Are y'all ready to party?" They also asked for the "ladies in the house, Mary Jane and some drinks" _ though their requests were not likely to be met at "Turts," as they repeatedly called the school.

Their performance was down-home hip-hop with an attitude, as the six band members shouted and moved all over the stage. Skinny D even climbed up on the huge loudspeaker at one point and rapped from there, either from fatigue from moving around or simply to have a change of scenery. And though their lyrics were hard to understand, if you figured them out it was nice to know that their songs had a narrative. "Awnaw" talked about surviving down South without any money while "Po' Folks" dealt with taking responsibility. And just to "take it back," they made the audience happy by covering some other bands' songs like "Hey, Mon."

Most people agreed, while they had come for Nappy Roots and really liked their energy, Kenny Muhammad stole the show.

Sophomore Jon Schlitz said, "I couldn't understand what [the Roots] were saying. But Kenny Muhammad was amazing."

Other performers included Ajahne Santa Anna and Connell of Iron Mic, who had good energy, though it took the two a while to warm up. In the beginning, they had trouble getting in sync and their rhythm was off. To their credit, they did get the audience going; you could see people waving their hands in the air and a few couples danced to the music on Turbo's mat in the center of the audience.

Turbo _ the break dancing group _ was hard to see because they were in the middle of the crowd, though you could spot hands and feet waving around in the air above everyone else's heads.

Santa Anna, of Iron Mic, felt that his group's performance was the highlight of the evening, and that Nappy Roots' show was "cool."

"When you get six guys all yelling into the microphone with down-South accents, it's a given that people aren't going to understand," he said. "But they had that energy. Besides, if you're famous, it doesn't matter if people don't understand you."

Whether or not the lyrics were intelligible to everyone, the audience emphatically yelled back at the Roots and danced with Prophet, Scales, Big V, Skinny Deville, Ron Clutch and Bo Stille. Above all the band showed themselves to be entertainers with a capital E.