Hip Hop 4 Dummeez - Presented by the Grafenberg All-Stars - The Hub, Newtown - 09/03/06

Ethan Switch - Friday, 10 March 2006 - Print Version

"White Power! White Power!" and the man in the wheelchair cranks up the motor to run down a few people crossing the intersection of Enmore and King Streets in Newtown. Leaking black metal music from the stereo underneath his seat, leather and a flat mohawk is all that this man is.

Waving out to the lingering crowd, the burly doorman of The Hub motions for the filling of seats. Smooth floors provide a sliding access. The coarseness within those same panels cause for jittery moves. Dank and wide open, the expanse of the interior of The Hub shows signs of continual upkeep, woodwork still rough and undone.

Half of the seats are empty and others are all up at the back. Brave are they down in the first three rows.

Popping a liner on the ear drums, Vowel Movement and Bushman bullet right on through their introductions. No loss of time, no waiting for the slow, the firing is quick and loud. Exact tones fall off and makes any sense hard to call.

Using the most horrid of all things default, the DVD experience of Hip Hop 4 Dummeez takes no prisoners in surrendering belief. Or of even taking things anywhere. Throwing the audience into the nightmare visuals that are of PowerPoint, the night of hip hop learning carries a merry pace.

Instructional and informative, the lessons on hip hop focus largely on the expression of words with a few glittering chains around the neck of style and posture.

Fine line between working the crowd and working the material. Edges still rough with drip leaving a lot of pause. More or less of consideration and of plain pain. Like watching English tutors teach ebonics. With all sincerity, the execution is at times both strange and extremely witty.

Canyons lie between the laughs, salvation comes in the scant few gems. Such as the reveal on Sesame Street's stark naked underbelly and the actual rhyming rhythms in the presentation. Dead fills the rest, an otherwise awkward sense of trepidation. Fear perhaps even from those down in the seats.

Levels just over aiight, this lecture on hip hop for dummies is far from being the shiznit.

Ethan Switch