Concert Review: Big Daddy Kane + The Beatnuts - B.B. King's, NYC - Friday 4 March 2005

Writer : Ama Chris Nsiah-Buadi

We know that New Yorkers have a reputation for being hard to please, but Big Daddy Kane and the Beatnuts didn't have to work to hard to get us jumping.

After a very late start, The Beatnuts showed the crowd - which was getting pretty fed up by this point - why they are called the beat legends of the hip hop underground by throwing down some seriously infectious beats.

Around an hour later, the crowd was nicely warmed by from the Beatnut 'magic' and was ready to welcome Big Daddy Kane back. Or at least it thought it was! Kane strutted onto the stage decked out in white, carrying his trusty 'Pimp Goblet', which would have ordinarily caused me some distress, but it was the Kane, so I got over it. The crowd was then quickly transported back to the early 90's as he performed his classics and dropped a few freestyle raps into the mix. But it was the tribute to Biggie, Big Pun, Left Eye and 2 Pac that summed up Kane's performance for me - passionate and defiant. Taking the lead from Kane, we all paid homage to each of these these guys not through a moment of silence, but through a moment of NOISE - lots of it!

And speaking of crowd participation, B.B. King's was filled to capacity with his legend-friends including Biz Markie and Foxy Brown, both of whom came on stage and freestyled in front of a stunned crowd. There was also no shortage of old school Kane fans decked out in their furs ('cos that how they do) and hip hop cats who were probably a little too young to remember him the first time around, but who fully appreciated his importance to hip hop culture.

In short, its been a long time, but Kane is most definitely back.