Sometimes through some unexplainable cosmic twist of fate, two unconnected forces come together and the results are awesome, like curry and fries. Another example would be that of Toronto’s Badbadnotgood and Wutang’s own Ghostface Killah. I’m not sure Ghostface happened to come upon the jazzy trio, but as his post Wutang career has suggested, Ghostface can draw inspirations from all places. The two paired up and recently released an album, Sour Soul and as luck would have it, they both were at SXSW.
What a show
The pairing makes so much sense live. BBNG are excellent excellent musicians, grew up in the 90s and are huge hip hop fanatics (they first gained some traction covering a Gucci Mane song). As such, their musical talent and hip hop knowledge allowed for the show to become a free flowing live collaboration. Sure, there were tracks played off a lot of new album but for the other half of the show, the group seemed to go with whatever worked.
At one point, Ghostface told the drummer to hit him with something and the group promptly responded with Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back.” So imagine Ghostface trying to do “I Want You Back” and you have an idea on how fun the show was. Another high point was for the Wu Tang song “Protect Ya Neck.” Ghostface brought up two fans to do the Method Man and ODB parts and one of the fans just crushed it. I’ve seen a lot of fans brought up to sing and it’s never good but this dude just nailed it hard. Click here to view it. The other guy messed up but made up for it by wearing a Wutang belt buckle and two batman shirts.
All in all an exceptionally fun show. Ghostface seems like the chillest cat and really responded to the music of BBNG and together they put on a hip hop show you don’t see very often, one that’s not musically predefined by laptops but rather, the ebb and flow of a concert itself.