Roll up, roll up!
A healthy but not packed crowd in the dance tent for Blackalicious, who feature decks, keyboards, backing singers and vocalist Gift of Gab (Tim Parker). They have quite a name in the dance/hip hop scene and have collaborated with artists such as Zache De La Rocha of Rage Against The Machine.
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They start impressively with deep thumping rhythms, a nice melody undercuts the rapping vocals and the addition of female backing vocals give a nice variety. It's unfortunate that they are on mid afternoon as you can't help feeling that their overall effect would be amplified by darkness and a more intoxicated crowd. They do a pretty good job though of keeping it tight and letting the set flow along nicely.
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As the tent fills up during the set they start to get rather familiar after a while and when the singer asks the crowd for a scream (fairground style!) I start to lose interest. From here on in they totally overdo the crowd participation and it does detract from the music. They redeem themselves briefly with a little freestyling, which gets a huge reaction. The crowd however do participate and plenty of them dance along enthusiastically. Good at what they do but perhaps an acquired taste.
To view all photos taken during this set click here. There are 16 available.