The essence of hip hop is poetry.  It always has been.  It has many forms; it can be as simple and fun as getting folks to throw their hands in the air and waving them like they just don’t care or as jarring and harrowing as a describing street life in the inner city.  Either way, at its core it was about putting words together in a way that brings in the listener to whatever place the artist wanted them.  All to a funky big booming beat.

It’s really that simple.

However, these days?  These days it seems to be more about telling tales of how big a man you are, how much dirt you did and how you’ll kill anybody that doesn’t agree with you.  And hey, if that’s what floats your boat, then there’s nothing wrong with that per se.  The business of hip hop is to cater to what the public wants, and so the ends justify the means.

Or do they?

That’s the over-arching message of the music of Del Tha Funky Homosapien.  To him, hip hop has always been more than just bling, spinning rims, and pulling out the 9 to smoke a fool.  Since 1991 with the release of “I Wish My Brother George Was Here” he has constantly been pushing the boundaries of what is commonly accepted as the norm in rap.  And at his show at The Black Sheep, he showed a packed and pumped up crowd why pushing boundaries is never ever a bad thing. 

The hits were all there.  A frantic version of his breakout hit “Mistadobalina” was as tight as an 808 beat.  A thumping ode to the pain of bad hygiene in “If You Must” had the crowd up and bouncing.  Even a clever reworking of “Clint Eastwood”, the seminal track Del did with the 2D supergroup Gorillaz was there in all its big groove glory.  DJ Zac Hendrix showed off his massive skills behind the turntables, and Del’s label mate and member of the way too cool for words Souls of Mischief A-Plus kept the crowd hyped. 

But moreover, if you got anything out of his performance, it was the fact that Del is completely in love with hip hop.  Not the silly, over-commercialized, over-rated mess that seems to dominate what’s going on out there right now, but the sheer joy of putting words over beats and making it, as he would say, funky.  In fact, his new album, FunkMan (The Stimulus Package) is available on his Web site (delthefunkyhomosapien.bandcamp.com) for free.  And I cannot tell you how truly and completely perfect that is.

Oh, and I would be remise in a very bad ugly way if I didn’t through out a bunch of love to the opening acts.  Dominic Deadbeat and Two-Tone Taurus represent what’s right with the Colorado Underground hip hop scene:  Tight beats, command stage presence, and flow that keeping you hanging on every word was the norm with these cats.  Add to the mix Oakland’s own Bukue One, with his mix of free-style and dub, and you have yourself one perfect evening of straight up no chaser Hip Hop.

I have always thought that if you wanted to find the real artistry whatever music scene you could think of, look to its underground.  It is pure, and those who practice in it do it out of the love of that purity. 

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Del Tha Funky Homosapien Photo by Photos by Anthony Graham