DJ Shadow & Jeru Tour

DJ Shadow & Jeru Tour

Tour by DJ Shadow
Start date	March 30, 1997 (1997-03-30)
End date	April 26, 1997 (1997-04-26)

Prior to this tour, DJ Shadow commenced a warm up tour starting March 20 in Savannah, Georgia, USA. The warm up tour was meant to last a week, and included a show on March 22nd supporting KRS-ONE in Cleveland, and supporting A Tribe Called Quest in Orlanda, Canada on the 23rd. The Orlando show was cancelled due to Shadow reportedly being sick.

During the tour DJ Shadow also played smaller in-store shows at record stores where he would play whatever records were handed to him by the crowd and try to mix them.

Dates

Date	Country	City	Venue	Notes
20 Mar 1997	USA	Savannah	-	DJ Shadow commences a week of warm up shows ahead of Jeru The Damaja tour
22 Mar 1997	USA	Cleveland	-	DJ Shadow supports KRS-ONE
23 Mar 1997	Canada	Orlando	-	DJ Shadow supports Tribe Called Quest - Shadow cancels as he is sick?
30 Mar 1997	Canada	Vancouver	Richard's On Richards	with Jeru The Damaja
31 Mar 1997	USA	Seattle	Show Box	with Jeru The Damaja
1 Apr 1997	USA	Portland	La Luna	with Jeru The Damaja
3 Apr 1997	USA	San Fransisco	Maritime Hall	with De La Soul, Jeru The Damaja and Latyrx
4 Apr 1997	USA	West Hollywood	House Of Blues	with De La Soul, and Jeru The Damaja
5 Apr 1997	USA	Santa Barbara	JC Santa Barbara	with Jeru The Damaja
6 Apr 1997	USA	San Diego	4th & B	with Jeru The Damaja
7 Apr 1997	USA	Tempe	Electric Ballroom	with Jeru The Damaja
9 Apr 1997	USA	Boulder	Fox Theatre	with Jeru The Damaja
10 Apr 1997	USA	Lawrence	Bottleneck	with Jeru The Damaja
11 Apr 1997	USA	Columbia	Blue Note	with Jeru The Damaja
12 Apr 1997	USA	Minneapolis	First Avenue	with Jeru The Damaja
13 Apr 1997	USA	Chicago	Park West	with Jeru The Damaja
15 Apr 1997	USA	New Orleans	House of Blues	with Jeru The Damaja
16 Apr 1997	USA	Atlanta	Masquerade	with Jeru The Damaja
17 Apr 1997	USA	Cincinnati	Bogart's	with Jeru The Damaja
18 Apr 1997	USA	Detroit	Majestic Theatre	with Jeru The Damaja
19 Apr 1997	Canada	Toronto	Tower Records	Instore. Bob Wood set to appear but was ill.
19 Apr 1997	Canada	Toronto	Opera House	with Jeru The Damaja
20 Apr 1997	Canada	Montreal	Dome	with Jeru The Damaja
21 Apr 1997	USA	New York City	Tower Records	Instore.
21 Apr 1997	USA	New York City	Tramps	with Jeru The Damaja
23 Apr 1997	USA	Boston	Axis	with Jeru The Damaja - Cancelled
24 Apr 1997	USA	Philadelphia	Theatre Of Living Arts	with Jeru The Damaja
25 Apr 1997	USA	Washington	Capitol Ballroom	with Jeru The Damaja
26 Apr 1997	USA	Syracuse	Syracuse University	with Jeru The Damaja

Recordings

The following have known recordings:

• 1 Apr 1997 - Portland - La Luna

• 3 Apr 1997 - San Fransisco - Maritime Hall

• 21 Apr 1997 - New York City - Tower Records

Review

23 Mar 1997

Vancouver

Debut DJ Shadow Concert Memorable Yet Indescribable

Just got back from the first night of the DJ Shadow/Jeru The Damaja double bill; although the sold-out crowd was definitely not disappointed by either artist's performance, last night's show was anything but familiar to attending Shadow fans. The Bay area DJ played only two songs ("Organ Donor" and "Midnight In A Perfect World") from his much-acclaimed album, Introducing DJ Shadow, preferring instead to improvise the rest or play even newer material. That said, the man is amazing to watch and even cooler to listen to live; run, do not walk to get a ticket to see him play.

31 Mar 1997

Seattle

ONE SONG INTO HIS SET, Jeru the Damaja laid down the law. "I came a long fuckin' way to rock on this mike," he berated the crowd, "and I want all you muthafuckas to make some noise, or I'm going home." The fans pressed up against the stage responded by screaming until they were hoarse. Jeru was mollified, but the incident set the tone for a show in which the star spent more time complaining than he did entertaining.

Jeru has never been one to pull punches. His two albums, 1994's The Sun Rises in the East and last year's Wrath of the Math, are tough, vehemently anti-gangsta calls to arms for hip-hoppers determined to reassert a sense of musical community that has been lost to turf wars and high-profile drive-bys. but at his :Seattle show, Jeru seemed more interested in fracturing the communal spirit than in building it.

What made the aggravation almost worthwhile were the brief moments when he deigned to perform: "Tha Frustrated Nigga" paired expertly syncopated rhymes against DJ Tommy's medley of jazzy piano samples; the boisterous call-and-response number "Da Bichez" had the crowd jumping high enough to shake the Showbox's wooden floors. Unfortunately, such highlights were rare, and some audience members perhaps weary of being lectured - trickled out before the freestyling encore.

If Jeru's persona overshadowed his music, opening act DJ Shadow let his turntables do the talking. Wearing a woolly hat pulled low over his face, the 24-year-old beat junkie looped and layered samples to create hallucinogenic sonic tapestries that moved from the kinetic "Stem/Long Stem" to a version of "Midnight in a Perfect World" in which the dance beat was slowed to a slur of drums and vocals. Most of the crowd either swayed along or stood watching Shadow manipulate his turntables. It wasn't until Latyrx - MCs Lateet and Lyrics Born - joined him that the dancing began. As the two rappers bounced across the stage trading pithy rhymes, their exuberance transformed the club into a rowdy indoor block party. It was a moment that said more about the enduring spirit of hip-hop than all of Jeru's lectures put together. -NEVA CHONIN

3 Apr 1997

San Fransisco

Just got back from the show on the 3rd. I don't think I will be spending more than $10 on hip-hop rap shows in the future, unless it is the Roots (who I haven't seen yet), or some small groups I haven't seen yet, like Bored Stiff. It had been so long since my last MC concert that I forgot why I didn't like them.

First of all, the sound was fucked as usual. I don't care how loud it is, have it as loud as you want it, as long as you don't overload the speakers. EVERY rap concert I have ever been to has overloaded their gear and it sounds fucked up. It takes me 15 seconds to ID a beat that they put on that I have in my walkman at that moment. TURN THE SHIT DOWN FOR ONCE.

Lateef and Lyrics Born was the tightest of the night, and people didn't even notice. When Lyrics came out, dressed about as 'hip-hop' as a construction worker, people didn't even know he was the MC. Lateef looked kind of funny too, can't explain it. But they ripped the mikes, and Shadow had an arsenal of beats and went through them all in a very short set. The crowd was too busy lighting up their skunk weed to realize they were being schooled on the future of hip-hop. Both their freestyles were ridiculous. To anyone that was there, what did Lyrics Born rhyme with "Bar Mitzvah"? I'm trying to remember.

Shadow, I don't know what the hell he was doing. I thought he would have a more innovative presentation, but he basically brought in some rap records, and also the records he sampled off of for Endtroducing, and just played them one after the other. I remember hearing about a set of his where he went through all old-school and funk, freaking it all the time, but none of that here.

Jeru - truly a sorry-ass MC. His entire set was weak. People to too busy jumping up and down and repeating, "Somebody, everybody Scream" to realize all he was doing was playing the beats and rapping the same old raps. His freestyle was about thirty seconds of bullshit.

When he did "Bitches", about half the females in the crowd were silent, and the other half was screaming, "Da bitches! Da bitches!" as loud as the males. Kind of funny and sad.

De La Soul have a pretty solid stage routine, but they haven't changed (improved) much since the last time I saw them two years ago. I probably won't pay to see them again.

Well, my verdict is that big-name hip-hop shows are wack. The sound is like having a million clock-radios going at full blast. The stage monitor people are already legally deaf, so what do they know. I'll stick to the smaller acts like Lateef and Lyrics Born. I would have much preferred to see a two hour show of them.

And DJ battles/showcases are ten times better than MC shows.

4 Apr 1997

West Hollywood House Of Blues:

First off, this was a great show. a really great mix of hip-hop styles and my only regret was that premier wasn't manning the decks for jeru. i can't remember the last live 4.5 hour show that kicked it from start to finish that i've been to. yes 2 hours, but not more than 4!

not surprisingly the order was latyrx/shadow, shadow, jeru, and de la soul. the highlights were seeing and hearing shadow in action, and jeru's showmanship.

latyrx' performance fell a little flat partly because of the audience, and partly because they got pissed at the audience. basically, at 9pm things weren't bumping. lyrics born and lateef worked well with shadow bringing in the beats and samples pretty smoothly. its fun to watch the dj work the decks when you can see the rappers moving onto something new. nothing like a bit of pressure add adrenalin. the beats were good and the rap, while incomprehensible, had a different rhythm to most. that said, i'm not sure i'm into the simultaneous rapping. need to try the album.

shadow then had the stage to himself in which he played a selection from endtroducing and his older 12"s. as you might hope, he reworked the sound on all the tracks, mixing in pieces where you hadn't heard them before and supplementing his work with a wide spectrum of world music from various ages. since he was essentially making new tunes on the spot, with the backbone from his other work, it was interesting to see how he brought it together.

i'm no equipment expert, but i'll describe what i saw: he had 6 pieces of equipment on the stage. 2 decks, mixer, some kind of pc hardware, and two sampler style machines (the kind that make a sound when you play a button that you program). It seemed that most of his endtroducing stuff came from the "pc" which he then added to. the organ section from endtroducing (can't remember which song - its really long) came from a "sampler" which he played like a mini-keyboard. during the show he moved between the different machines pretty deftly. short of deconstructing tracks into their elements, that's as far as I can go. I especially liked the use of the "get high, look inside yourself, in back and in front of yo'self ..." vocal. totally great and insightful, no? :). one other thing, shadow is definitely a well earned moniker (sp?). he hardly addressed the crowd and at the end of his set, just left the stage in the blink of an eye.

the crowd built for jeru pretty well. he came out in a cape from the italian flag, no shirt, trademark hat and regulation sagging pants. he was a sight. i love that man's voice. it's just great. he had us chanting and shouting along, pretty funny doing the chorus to "da bichez" - sorry if that's not pc, but it was funny. besides, if you know jeru's lyrics, it's clear that he definitely uses "sophisticated" techniques to mock/criticise the scene. later on in the show he had us making "kung-fu music" which he laid raps on top of. then he had us working in some kind of harmony. lotsafun.

following was de la soul, and i have to say it was a come down from jeru. he seemed so fresh that it made de la's show look far too rehearsed. maceo didn't even need to man the decks apart from to get some (pretty sad) scratching sound effects. can't you sample that anyway? he just paused his digital recording occasionally. another complaint i need to get off my chest is the way i felt i was back in those cheesey discos in england (the world over probably) where the dj has his special mix of all those favourites in 2 minute bursts (ymca + abba + grease + thriller + ...) so the audience doesn't get bored (!) with the beats. they moved too slickly from song to song without enough pauses to enjoy the tracks. that said, they put on a good show, and you (well, I) can't fault the music. they have an impressive body of work out there.

so there you have it, three/four different faces of hip-hop in one show. well worth the loot.

4 Apr 1997

West Hollywood House Of Blues

Friday's show at the House of Blues should have been videotaped and distributed to classes as a visual textbook called "Hip-Hop History 101."

DJ Shadow, through his Afrika Bambaataa-influenced selection of eclectic music, took the crowd back to the days when a deejay could play a rock record, a funk record and an opera record back to back. Jeru the Damaja demonstrated the concept of the MC as the hard rhymer, the party rocker the self-created superhero. And headliners De La Soul showed the astounding level hip-hop rises to when eclectic beats and hard rhymes are combined.

What the sold-out crowd witnessed was the first hip-hop show in a long time that got back to the music's essence--not only in the sense that the three acts proved that the idea of rocking the crowd, having fun and throwing stress to the wind at a hip-hop jam hasn't been played out, but also in the way they broke down the evolution of the music.

DJ Shadow is a 24-year-old white man from Davis, but he understands the power of the drum and the mysticism of rhythm. This 24-year-old samurai of the digital sampler demonstrates things about African rhythms through his conceptual beat collages that LeRoi Jones explained 30 years ago in his seminal book about African American music, "Blues People."

Shadow, who introduces himself on his critically acclaimed debut album "Endtroducing . . . " as a student of the drum, practiced Jones' thesis that in the African concept, rhythm is less a tempo marker than a full-fledged language. Shadow, like all scholars and fans who fully understand the pure essence of black music, comprehends that drum beats themselves contain words, speeches, epic stories and melodies all their own. Sometimes lyrics and showy performances get in the way of that.

In his opening set his beats started as a murmur and culminated in a crescendo, running through an eclectic selection of underground West Coast rap, Miami bass-style electro-beats and weird records that resembled techno but still had a firm hip-hop grounding. Shadow seemed less concerned with getting the crowd dancing than with getting them to listen to the variety of what was being played.

But if the evening belonged to anyone, it was De La Soul. The Long Island natives, who have created four of the most cutting-edge hip-hop albums ever, had the whole crowd in a frenzy. The trio freestyled and shouted their playful rhymes with equal parts bravado and humor. Like Shadow and Jeru, they proved that the secret to hip-hop longevity comes not from following trends but setting them.

9 Apr 1997

West Boulder's Fox Theatre

The Jeru the Damaja/DJ Shadow gig April 9 at Boulder's Fox Theatre should have been memorable for musical reasons. Instead, what will stick in the minds of most of those who were present will be the actions of a handful of knuckleheads who helped perpetuate the impression that live hip-hop shows can be dangerous for spectators and even artists. This one certainly was for Jeru, a recent Westword profile subject ("Damage Control," January 16); he was slashed on the arm during an onstage altercation and required thirteen stitches at a Boulder hospital to close the wound.

To set the scene based on the observations of a reliable eyewitness--me: It was a miserable night in Boulder, thanks to a spring storm and driving conditions that even someone in a Zamboni would have found challenging. Nevertheless, the Jeru/Shadow date was a sellout, and from the size of the crowd inside the Fox, it was clear that virtually everyone who had purchased a ticket had used it. By and large, the patrons were young and pleasingly multicultural; moreover, none of the various groups represented seemed to be at each other's throats. By all appearances, peace was the order of the day.

Not that those present were ready to accept whatever they were given. At half past nine, the opening act, DJ Shadow (lauded in "The Shadow Knows," April 3) stepped from the wings. But rather than offering up moody soundscapes of the sort that populate his fascinating new full-length, Endtroducing..., he remained in the background while two rappers from his crew, SoleSides, threw rhymes at the throng. The result was underwhelming; the pair displayed all the flow of hardened concrete. The attendees reacted with justifiable disdain. Although SoleSides wasn't booed off the stage, it didn't come close to earning an encore.

Jeru was another story; from the moment he moved into the spotlight, he was in charge. Clad in a puffy, Afrocentric hat and a cape tossed over his bare torso, he lit into material drawn largely from last year's Wrath of the Math album like the ebony Superman he claims to be. But what was most surprising about his turn was the way he leavened his trademark positivity with humor. The tone of the show was set early on, when he revealed why he had failed to appear alongside Tricky for a scheduled January show at the Fox: "Tricky was an asshole," he explained. As the performance went on, Jeru took regular breaks to hector anyone and everyone he did not feel was getting down enthusiastically enough. But his manner was good-natured and comic, not confrontational. It was hard to believe that anyone could take umbrage at his behavior.

Unfortunately, someone did. After an especially entertaining bit of audience participation, a fan named Art challenged Jeru to a freestyle contest. Such battles, in which emcees make up raps in an attempt to best their adversaries, are a hip-hop tradition, and Jeru was more than willing to compete. Art was given a chance to rhyme and did so vigorously but amateurishly. Jeru dispatched him quickly but without undue gloating; he and an associate (who said that Art had displayed "a lot of heart") even encouraged the people at the Fox to give the loser a round of applause. Before he could go on with the show, however, Jeru received another challenge, this time from a group of beefy young Caucasians in a section designated for those 21 and over--an area where alcohol was permitted. According to information gleaned by the Fox's Don Strasburg, these men had been trying to get Jeru into a freestyle duel since early in his show--and he finally acquiesced. One of the men, adorned in baggy pants and a knit hat, stepped on stage and immediately got in Jeru's face. He refused to rap first, and when he was goaded at last into offering up a few lines, he came off like Vanilla Ice's less talented little brother. Jeru responded by verbally roasting him, but the man refused to leave the stage. After a few seconds of jawing, Jeru gave him a second chance, but the best the kid could manage was a weak insult of the rapper's nipples.

Shortly thereafter, a situation that initially struck some observers (like yours truly) as a staged sideshow spiraled out of control. The man accused Jeru of being "hostile," a charge that struck the star of the show as absurd; shaking his head, he told the man's supporters that he was only "buggin'," not trying to precipitate a fight. Then he freestyled a response that ended with him trying to take the microphone from the man's hand. (A member of Jeru's posse had previously tried to retrieve the mike but had failed to do so.) The man reacted by taking a swing at Jeru. As they grappled, the stage suddenly filled with security personnel, roadies and perhaps others from the crowd--it was hard to tell who was who. The combatants were separated and pulled off stage in a matter of seconds, and a number of cooler heads, like Francois Baptiste of 3-Deep Productions, tried to calm everyone down. That proved easier said than done: At one point, Baptiste told some of the man's comrades, "You're in the 21 section, but you're acting like you're 4 years old."

Moments later, Jeru reappeared, his hand and arm wrapped in a large white towel, and announced that he had been "cut with a blade" that had taken a slice out of his flesh. He said he needed to get some medical attention, but before he left, he freestyled a boisterous answer to any doubters in the crowd, portraying himself as an invincible wordsmith. Afterward, Shadow returned to the stage for a previously scheduled exhibition of deejaying skill. But half an hour into the session, another scuffle broke out, prompting Fox personnel and police on the scene to pull the plug on the music and clear the theater for the night.

Despite the passage of time since that decision, many questions about the fracas remain--like, for instance, what actually cut Jeru? No blade or knife was found, and Strasburg, who points out that Fox security staffers searched everyone before they were allowed into the venue, doubts that such a weapon was used. He and Fred Dewey, the chief operating officer of Small Axe Productions, which promoted the date, believe that Jeru was injured by flying glass from a bottle that was thrown onto the stage during the melee. "I'm the one who took him to the emergency room," Strasburg says, "and to me, the wound was more in line with something like that. Besides, everything happened so fast. I don't think there's any way that kid could have pulled a razor blade out of his pocket, taken the cover off it and then slashed Jeru."

The culprits, in the meantime, remain at large. Dewey says that the man on stage with Jeru and two of his friends were kicked out of the theater after the incident, but they were not detained by security workers, nor were they arrested. Strasburg defends this approach: "At a time like that, we're more interested in making sure that everyone is safe than in arrests," he says. However, he admits that Boulder police were called to the scene on two different occasions that night, and a slew of Fox employees, musicians and ticket-buyers filled out incident reports. Leslie Aaholm, spokeswoman for the Boulder Police Department, says the case is likely to stop there. The reason?Jeru's decision not to press charges against the freestyler in question, identified by witnesses as (irony time) "African Sam."

Of course, given the Boulder cops' progress, or lack thereof, in finding the killer of a certain child beauty queen who lived in these parts, there's every possibility that no one will do time for last week's scrap. But whatever comes to pass, those involved in promoting and staging the concert make it plain that hip-hop, a genre linked in the mainstream media with violence of the sort that killed Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G., should not be made a scapegoat for what happened. "The circumstances were unique to rap in a sense, because there aren't many other kinds of music where people from the audience might be invited on stage to perform," Dewey concedes. "But by the same token, there are certainly punk shows where people get on stage and start fighting. And nobody's talking about banning punk shows."

"If this had happened at a White Zombie show or a Jesus Lizard show, this wouldn't be half the issue it is," Strasburg agrees. "But because it happened at a hip-hop show, it's going to be seen in a different light."

This point is well-taken. Although problems have cropped up at plenty of concerts by musicians in other styles of music (a near-riot at a November 1993 Pearl Jam appearance is a prime example), the ones people tend to recall, for reasons that probably have a lot to do with racism, are those that occur in a hip-hop context: a DJ Quik visit to Mammoth Gardens in 1991 that degenerated into a sign-throwing, bottle-heaving brawl; a 1992 fashion show at the Fox that led to vandalism when fans learned that special guests De La Soul did not intend to perform; an October 1993 Cypress Hill bash at the University of Colorado-Boulder that resulted in nine ambulance runs and ten victims of injuries ranging from contusions to a broken bone. Such episodes only contribute to the feeling among a great many promoters that putting on hip-hop shows is simply too big a risk. Bill Bass, the head of Small Axe, acknowledges that this perception hits him in the wallet. "When I was going to do a Snoop Doggy Dogg/Dr. Dre show a few years ago, I was getting insurance quotes of two dollars a head," he reveals. "That's not good for the scene, but it's the kind of thing you have to put up with--because you have to have a good, strong insurance company behind you, for your own protection."

Still, neither Bass nor Strasburg has any intention of dropping hip-hop because of what happened to Jeru. Bass has already committed to bring the second volume of last year's successful Smokin' Grooves tour to Red Rocks on July 21; he notes, "We had 9,400 people there last year, and there wasn't a single problem." Strasburg, meanwhile, plans to put up barricades at hip-hop shows from now on as an extra measure of protection for artists. He adds, "Jeru is fine--and he wasn't even angry about what happened. All he said was, 'I guess I can't invite people to come on stage with me anymore.'"

13 Apr 1997

Chicago Review:

Regarding the show (the chicago variety featured local faves Rubberoom and Solesides' Latryx/Jeru and Shadow)... Latryx know how to rock the mic. Vocals were understandable and the beats had much bounce (courtesy of Shadow and Chief Xcel). Not many people there knew of em, but the crowd had their back.

Jeru really disapointed me. The man is a hypocrisy personified. He comes out bitching about how the crowd needs to get more into it or he will bounce. Claiming he already got paid and that he doesn't care about us. This was 3 songs into the set mind ya. The next song is called the bullshit and is about all the "bullshit" that he sees in rap. Most notably it disses those in it for the money and not the love. I guess it doesn't apply to him. Then he claims to drop a freestyle but its got the same rhymes he dropped in Chicago a year ago... it sounds freestyle (ie. sloppy, yet almost identical lyrics). He then gets the crowd to yet "da Bitches, da bitches" and called someone out for not yelling it with him. of course, he's not talking about the "queens" but the bitches. its like asking a chinese to yell, not the convienence store owners, but the chinks". his rasta get-up means nothing. the man has no sense of principle and has beat up writers for giving a less than flattering review of his show. he ain't shit without premier's beats.

anyways, shadow came on, but only had about 30 minutes because of wack time limitations (same thing happened the night before with atari teenage riot). he did some basic cutting like scratching "midnight" in and out or whatever. he did add some new elements to most of the tracks... playing original samples, and extending tracks and such. the crowd basically didn't know what to do. shadow's not exactly the showman, but i enjoyed it. i'd love to see him in more of a club setting, rather than the auditorium likeness of the park west. no real flaws and about what i expected.

13 Apr 1997

Chicago

On DJ Shadow's 1996 album, "Endtroducing . . .," the break beats that are hip-hop's rhythmic foundation become the building blocks of full-blown compositions. Using electronic bites of mostly obscure records, Shadow developed sophisticated textural, rhythmic and melodic ideas that belied the fact there were barely any vocal parts on the album, let alone any actual instruments.

On Sunday at Park West, Shadow (a.k.a. Josh Davis), capped a three-hour night of deejay-driven music with a brief but alluring set that affirmed his skills not just as a deejay but as a composer.

Shadow spliced together his debut album in his Davis, Calif., bedroom, using turntables, a sampler and a vast collection of dusty vinyl as source material. The set-up at Park West was similar, and the unassuming, stocking-capped deejay worked the wheels of steel with seamless grace.

The grooves respect hip-hop's funk roots, but Shadow does not cull from the oversampled repertoire of James Brown, P-Funk and other R&B legends. Instead, Shadow will pull a beat from an unlikely source, such as U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday," and work noirish textures over the top.

On "Midnight in a Perfect World," he layered the wordless cries of a female vocalist, sampled from an album of religious music, over a sparse piano riff and a shuffling drum loop to create a gorgeous mix of trance and dance.

Shadow also proved adept at working more straightforward break beats underneath the boisterous rapping of Latryx, a hip-hop duo on Shadow's San Francisco-based Solesides label. The duo effectively worked the contrasts between their vocal styles: Lateef's eager, animated flow and the gruffer-voiced, Jamaican-influenced stylings of Lyrics Born.

The Solesides crew clearly has an aesthetic connection with openers Rubber Room, a Chicago act that brings youthful freshness to the old-school virtues of rhythm and rhyme. Only Brooklyn rapper Jeru the Damaja came off as out of step with the progressive vibe of the evening. Frequently berating the crowd for its lack of enthusiasm, Jeru relied on call-and-response gambits that sounded tired next to the inventiveness of the other performers on the bill. Even the break dancers on the floor flashed sharper impromptu moves than the caped emcee, whose freestyle verse was feeble.

Images

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  DJ Shadow & Jeru

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  Poster for 31 March show with Jeru

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  Poster for 3 April show with De La Soul

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  Ticket for 17 April show with Jeru

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  Illustration of Jeru and Shadow in New Yorker April 21 1997

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  Write up in New Yorker April 21 1997

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  April 21 1997 show in Camel Page advertisement

External Links

MTV News article announcing tour

MTV interviews DJ Shadow and Grandmaster Flash

MTV Video of New York in-store and meeting between DJ Shadow and Grandmaster Flash

Poster for March 31 show

Ticket from Aril 17 show

Write up in New Yorker April 21 1997 (subscription may be required)

Review of April 9 show at Boulder's Fox Theatre

Fans reviewing April 3 show

DJ Shadow's show in Chicago is recommended by the Chicago Reader, April 11, 1997

DJ Shadow and Jeru's show on March 21 recommended by Camel