Words by YIKES!Within an instant of stepping in the sold out San Francisco club, the prevailing stench of patchouli oil, body odor, and bammer weed made the fact that The Coup has become a sum greater than its parts painfully obvious. Pushing through the crowd full dreadlocked hippies, former beatnicks with their “Fuck Bush” pins, and pseudo-revolutionary dike chicks who don’t shave their armpits, the audience resembled more of a 60’s Berkeley peace rally than a hip-hop show. What began as a three person movement just across the Bay has become an international allegory for the struggle of the minority- not those with a dark complexion, but the rest of us who don’t own the majority of the wealth. Saturday night they all came out to rally around Boots, Pam, and the band to laugh, love, fuck and drink liquor.
If you don’t know, The Coup is the best hip-hop show performed with live instruments outside of The Roots, no ?UESTion. Despite being on the road for 9 weeks for the release of their new album “Pick a Bigger Weapon,” the final stop on tour was as much an ode to their entire classic catalog as a demonstration of their new styles. They rocked one joint from almost every album but neglected to play anything from Kill My Landlord though burnt copies of their forgotten first album was about the only piece of music they had left at the merch booth after 3 months on tour. Come to think of it, I’ve seen them three times and never once heard them play anything from the first album. I’m sayin, one of these days I gotta hear Boots do “The Liberation of Lonzo Williams,” or atleast “Fuck a Perm.”
Every time I see them they rock progressively harder, I can’t help but naturally draw parallels with this and the fact they hopped on the Epitaph bandwagon, but they’ve always manage to remain essentially funky. As is standard procedure, the first three joints were played through a thick cloud of high grade fog, but the properly blunted put down the lighters and picked up their feet to the feel good anthem “ShoYoAss.” In the fashion only The Coup can do, they spit lyrics that matter over grooves that made the crowd think but also moved them with the beat. The best shit about it is that no one moves more than Boots; dude commands crazy stage presence. He nodded his fro and two-stepped in a full suit the entire night, complete with a vest and a pair of leather kicks that share his namesake, leaving stage only once while letting the band breathe. But as much as fun as Boots has onstage, I couldn’t help but spend most of my time watching the group’s vocalist Silk E go stupid, dumb, and hyphy and think of how much I just wanna lay around all day in bed with you. Her solo performance of “Baby Let’s Have a Baby (Before Bush Do Something Crazy)” was by far the most beautiful part of the night.
Despite Ms. E’s solid support, it was the other female member that stole the show. In the midst of a failed beat juggle attempt of “Afro Puffs,” Pam the Funkstress decided to say fuck it and resorted to some of the sickest scratching sets I’ve ever witnessed. My cousin and I were to the right of the stage to where we could practically change her records for her, but were mesmerized in wide eyed amazement of her technique. This was all before she started scratching with her titties! Her tables contributed an instrument to the band and she was responsible for the whole house going buck, even the cranky ass security guard, when she dropped the “Billie Jean” instrumental down for “Fat Cats and Bigga Fish.”
And speaking of Pam’s set, a triple extra large FUCK YOU to Jabba the Hut, the portly smurf who kept asking us to move so she could see while sitting down because her cankles couldn’t support her heifer ass. Meanwhile, the band showed an affinity for southern fried crunk classics when they covered “So Fresh, So Clean” and "85" by Youngbloodz while Boots told the story of him and Jesus the Pimp in a 79 Granada. Unfortunately he only dropped the first verse to his classic tale. They rocked for almost two hours and played ALMOST every joint that everyone wanted to hear. I couldn’t help but be disappointed they omitted The Stand, the pinnacle of the new album, already one of their greatest hits, and a song molded perfectly for an encore performance. Instead they came back out for a final time on this tour to make sure you always “Wear Clean Draws.” And judging by some of the stank coming off those liberal loonies in house the other night, some of yall need to take heed to what your leader tells you.
Loosies
The Roots feat. Cee-lo Green - Crazy
Serious Jones - Hip-Hop
Young Dro - I Need Her
Rick_Ross_And_Game_-_Blow_and_My_Turn
Lil Boosie - Swag
Trey Songz Feat. Yung Joc - Are U A Performa (Remix)
Lil Boosie - Don't Need
Proof - Take Back The Land
Robin Thicke - Cocaine (Remix) ft AC
Trey Songz - Slow
Megan Rochell feat. AC - BETCHA
X-Clan - Weapon X
Method Man - O.D.
8.18 Loosies Download
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