Review: Greatest Rap Show Ever

[janice.r.s.suit]

Well here's my review of the "The Greatest Rap Show Ever" concert
I attended on January 3, 1992. In a word it was SLAMMIN'.

After the City College incident most folks were reluctant to go to the
concert but I said hey Madison Square Garden isn't a college gym.
So me and my people went for it.

First up was Leaders of the New School. The fellas went off.
They did "Sobb Story" "P.T.A." and one other rap. The crowd
responded to them well. A second later they came back on with
A Tribe Called Quest and they did the rekkid they made with TCQ.
Don't know the name of it off hand but I'm sure someone out there does.

Then TCQ did "Check the Rhime" and the crowd went totally mad
(me included 8-). People were screaming the lyrics so loud you
could hardly hear Tip and Phife. They also performed "Kick It".
Then they jetted. They didn't do "Butter" "Jazz" "Bonita Applebaum" "Left My Wallet in El Segundo" or any of their other slammin' stuff.
I was very disappointed.

Next up was my sista' Queen Latifah. What can I say, I'm a mega
fan of La La and IMHO the woman "Tore Shit Up." She really knows
how to move a crowd. She did "Ladies First" "FlyGirl" "Latifah's
Had It Up To Here" and a few others. All in all I give her
performance 2 million thumbs up. She told the folks "You came here
in PEACE so leave please here in PEACE." So very true.

Naughty By Nature was up next. The brothers were all dat and
a bag of chips, pretzels and Doritos. They gave the second best
performance. They had the crowd movin'. No one sat down the
whole time while they were on stage. They performed "1-2-3" "Ghetto"
"Wickedest Man Alive" with Queen Latifah, "OPP" and a few others.
Treach did this acappella thang that gave me chills, the brother
can flow.

Next up Kid N Play. Can we ALL say weak. They got booed from the
very beginning. No props at all for these brothers. No one could
get wit them. They had Kid Capri and Prince Messiah as DJs (a plus for them)
and anyone who is in the know about Kid Capri and Prince Messiah
know how incredibly dope+++++ these brothers are. Kid and Play got
booed so much that Kid Capri and Prince Messiah had to hype the crowd up,
so right in the middle of Kid N Play's set, Kid Capri and
Prince Messiah did some devastating mixing of old old old school stuff and
some new school thangs to get the crowd moving again.
Kid N Play ran off stage to change their clothes....were they serious.
Who cared about what they were wearing this is RAP people not a Hollywood
movie, get a GRIP!!!! When they came back on stage people were yelling
for Kid Capri and Prince Messiah. They got dissed really bad.

Well then we got to see the Geto Boys perform. I'm not a fan of the Geto
Boys and from the look of it most people weren't. They didn't get booed though and they did give a really good performance. Since I don't know any of
their rekkids I believe they performed a rap about the Gulf War and
something about a Mr. Scarface. They did perform "My Mind Playing
Tricks on Me" and that really got the crowd movin'. Now I have
to give the Boys major props because at then end of their
set they gave a shout out to my hometown, Asbury Park, New Jersey. 8-)

Last but never least was Public Enemy. What can I say about PE that
hasn't already been said. The brothers were sensational. Chuck, Flav,
Terminator, and S1Ws were at their best. They performed lots of
stuff off the their new album and some old favorites like "Night of the Living
Baseheads" and "Bring the Noise". They gave the best performance overall.

Some last notes. DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince didn't show up but
who cares.

Before PE came on Heavy D came out on stage and ask everyone
to give a moment of silence for the 8 brothers and 1 sister that
died at the CCNY incident, and asked that we all keep the PEACE because
we only got each other. Now while Heav was saying these profound words
a bunch of young brothers beat the hell out of the one kid right in
front of my seat. I have never seen anyone get beat up like this
before in my life, it was 7 against 1. Where were the so called
security guards, or should I call them USHERS. They was standing back
with their dumb mouths wide open... Now they had plenty of New York's
finest outside Madison Square Garden instead of inside where they were need.
Finally the crowd started yelling for them to stop and the brothers ran off.
Later when we were leaving (I left a little early to avoid any further
trouble) we saw blood everywhere and the kid was being wheeled off
in an ambulance. I cried, it's a damn shame that we can's have anything
with out some trouble starting. Let me get off my soapbox now.

Anyway....check, check, check it out if this tour hits your city. It's was
well worth it....

I'm out.... by the way Tundrea..you can git wit this or you can git wit
dat..I think you'll git wit this cause this is where it's at!!!

Janice

[brentho...@gmail.com]

OH MY GOD!!!!

I was at the same tour show in Chicago on New Years Eve! Literally the only white kid I saw the whole time. haha! Great to hear someone else remembers it.

[kmcmusi...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, January 7, 1992 at 8:46:32 AM UTC-6, janice.r.s.suit wrote:

I remember this tour well

[luvle...@gmail.com]

I went to that too! I saw it in Worcester MA, when I was 14. I was getting nostalgic for the past and I thought about that show...I looked it up and I can't believe I found this, a post created at a time before I had ever even heard of the internet. I actually have a hard time believing that things were being posted on the net back in '92!
Anyway, the show was great except for the fact that I was the only white girl there and I got my ass grabbed about a billion times lol
.... just thought I'd bump this since somebody bumped it when it was 23 years old so why not bump it again?

[urbanfl...@gmail.com]

They had groups and internet access in 1992???

[jeffrey...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, January 7, 1992 at 9:46:32 AM UTC-5, janice.r.s.suit wrote:

I was there for the Cleveland show!

[J D]

As a kid -- I went to this show, but down in Virginia.

I was googling the concert to see if there was any pictures, and now its 2024, and I am replying to a 32 year old message.

[Renee McNeely]

As someone born in the 2000s, there's something really crazy to me about
seeing stuff from the 1990s be referred to as "new school" because it's
really easy in the 2020s to lump everything from back then into one big
heaping pile of "the past". Phife died before I really got into hip hop
so I'm super jealous that this user got to see him live. It warms my
heart though to know that artists I like now were getting respect back
then as well.