#DRoseDoc inspired throwback GWHH coverage

The moment Derrick Rose found out he was traded from his hometown Chicago Bulls to the Knicks is chilling to watch 😳 (via @Stadium) https://t.co/2SW0OmnRtJ

— ESPN (@espn) April 12, 2019

Tonight, Derrick Rose’s official documentary premiered via live stream on Stadium and for any Chicago basketball fan, any D. Rose fan… or really, just any fan of anyone who has triumphed above a lot, Pooh is a must-see doc.

The clip above is one of the many powerful moments of Rose’s journey as the cameras were filming him the moment he received the call from his agent (and former Bulls great) B.J. Armstrong that he was traded to the New York Knicks in the summer of 2016. It’s viral now and has resonated with everyone who can see his emotion and passion for his hometown city.

The doc also did an amazing job showing never before seen footage like this throughout all the stages of Derrick’s life. On one hand, we all knew how hard Rose had it growing up in Englewood, but that was driven home even further at the beginning of the doc. Rose had days where he didn’t even have a nickel to buy a piece of candy at the store so instead he just ate spoonfuls of powdered sugar (while watching Power Rangers – nice choice!)

We also get a fresh perspective from Rose, teammate Joakim Noah, Tom Thibodeau, John Paxson, and various Chicago writers about the polarizing divide of waning favoritism towards Rose in Chicago. This, during the seasons he struggled to come back from injuries and didn’t communicate articulately to the media whose own spin of the narrative fueled the divide even more.

Alas, the stirring doc brought back some much pleasant nostalgia as the Rose Era Bulls were my favorite basketball team since the Jordan years, and Rose being my favorite player to this day. It also recalled our own fortunes of covering a couple of Derrick Rose’s shoe releases both before and after his ACL injury. Some b-roll footage even caught co-founder Maks G at one of these events (head to our instagram) so I felt it was right we add to the #TBT/#FBF fun below.

D. Rose: Chicago legend forever. (Come back this summer?!)

Fall 2013: D Rose 4 Shoe Release @ United Center featuring Big Sean

Winter 2011: D Rose 2.0 Shoe Release @ State St. Foot Locker

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A couple of Big Sean classics on his birthday

“One of the most important quotes I live by is ‘Imagination is more important than knowledge.’ Dreams are so important. Without dreams, you got nothing.” — Big Sean (2010)

GY, one of our OG #TeamGowhere members you all know as @GY312, is out in L.A. with us and today we were rappin’ on some old music, which then turned into a reminiscing rabbit hole of our old interviews… which then led us to this. “Living Our Dreams (Memories)”, one of our all-time favorite documentary style cuts shot by the Emmy-winning Cam Be and doubling as one of GY’s first interviews with us at GWHH.

We caught up with Big Sean, post-Finally Famous 3, but pre-Finally Famous the debut album. It was late 2010 and his G.O.O.D. Music buzz was peaking in such a way on the internet that it manifested into reality at Reggie’s Rock Club on Chicago’s south side.

Funny enough, our organic recollecting also led us to our trip to Austin for SXSW in 2012. A year and a half later, the three of us: GY, Cam, and I — amongst our Gowhere contingent were packed into a small venue for the G.O.O.D. Music showcase. This meant a performance by Big Sean of his Finally Famous album singles and a surprise appearance by none other than Kanye West. Here’s another Camovement of the back-to-back-to-back performance of “Dance (A$$)”, “Marvin & Chardonnay” and ‘Ye going solo for a hype rendition of “Can’t Tell Me Nothing”. Chills to this day. We were all behind them on the stage and it’s still one of my memorable concert experiences I bring up casually in convo when it comes up.

Even more comically, to us at least, our nostalgic convo culminated in the realization that Big Sean’s back on social media on his born day today. To bring it full circle: 2010–>2012–>2019. The new rhymes are sounding good. Here for it all these years later. HBD!

Tell your friends. @BigSean is back 👀 https://t.co/rSjAeTHxOW

— Complex Music (@ComplexMusic) March 26, 2019

Limp Bizkit performs a special $3 show in LA; Marilyn Manson and Billy Corgan were there too

https://twitter.com/gowherehiphop/status/1103206919710228481

When Limp Bizkit announces a special, one-off show for only $3 (as a nod to their debut album, Three Dolla Bill Ya’ll) then of course you refresh Ticketfly as soon as tickets go on sale. The “nu-metal” band that was heard everywhere at the turn of the century sold out the Troubadour in L.A. in literally seconds. I personally couldn’t get through for tickets at the strike of 3pm PT, but @hetalbot did and he provided all of the videos and coverage for us here.

The show, a warmup to their string of festival dates beginning this weekend, then proceeding to Europe this spring, was a nostalgia-filled set of their greatest hits and head bangers. Not to mention: some A-list special guests were on hand — Marilyn Manson, Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins, and Steve Perry of Journey. MGK was also there. (EDIT: Turns out it was Steve Perry cover singer Frank Dee but the way Fred Durst presented it and crowd reacted, it seemed like it was the real Perry. Damn good cover singer.)

The night’s first surreal moment, aside from the whole experience of seeing Limp Bizkit live in 2019 itself (with the whole band back together by the way: shoutout Wes Borland), was Fred Durst up in the VIP balcony singing “My Way” with Marilyn Manson who may or may not have known the chorus:

https://twitter.com/gowherehiphop/status/1103216313680330754

As you can also see above, Fred Durst stage dived for “Rollin”, you know, the Undertaker’s American Badass theme song, and later remixed with DMX, Method Man, and Redman. The stage dive might’ve been rusty but the love was real. Durst also teased the crowd that they’re a bunch of cheapskates and that this was a $3 karaoke night (the lyrics were displayed behind the band all night).

Other classics included “Break Stuff” and a clip of Wes Borland being a total badass on guitar to kick off “My Generation”. Never forget: Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Eminem all made cameos in the “Break Stuff” video. Also never forget: Fred Durst made out with Halle Berry in the “Behind Blue Eyes” video. What a time.

https://twitter.com/gowherehiphop/status/1103218172365172736

Alas: for the encore… the surprise of the night had to be the legendary Steve Perry of Journey performing one of the greatest end songs in all of rock history: “Don’t Stop Believing”. Not to mention: (EDIT: the Steve Perry cover singer sounding great!) Hetal didn’t catch it on video, but Wes and some friends were just sitting next to his amp Indian-style like little kids while he sang. That’d be us too.

Of course, Limp Bizkit would then close it out for good, after some covers of Green Day, Pantera, and Metallica, they ended on what may be my favorite LB song of them all: “Take a Look Around”. I listened to the M:I2 theme all summer of 2000, having never heard a guitar combined with the distinct chords of Mission: Impossible like Borland executed. I can still recite Durst’s memorable verses a capella and I’ve also been wearing New Era ever since. Fitting close.

https://twitter.com/gowherehiphop/status/1103222403839156224

Needless to say: tonight was well worth the $5.18 with service fee.

#BeyYe: Yasiin Bey’s one of a kind show entirely over Kanye West beats (Video)

 

TWO WORDS, Mos Def, K West, hot shit.

I mean, Yasiin has been tellin’ us for years. Last night though, @hetalbot and I were lucky enough to see it, first-hand live. (And yup, we got there early to get up front for these clips!)

The show began on a refreshingly odd note. Yasiin spray-painted “Oysters” on the blank canvas below the DJ booth and then continued to ceremoniously drape his performance space with rose petals. The vibe set, Yasiin went into “Life in Marvelous Times” fittingly over one of Kanye’s most iconic album intros, “Good Morning”. One of my Graduation favorites, “I Wonder”, soon followed.

Here are clips of mash-ups like “Ms Fat. Booty” over “Devil in a New Dress” (that definitely worked), “Mathematics” over “New God Flow”, and “Quiet Dog” over “Black Skinhead” that, in portion due to that beat at high volume in-person, was one of the hypest moments of the show. Little things like Yasiin’s dances and how the DJ would drop the music and let Yasiin’s echo close out almost every song made the show even that much more fun and polished. Clips can only do so much, but these are ones I’ll be rewatching years to come and transplanting myself back to January 13th in downtown L.A.

Yasiin then presented the next track as an unreleased record produced by Kanye. It jumped out as one of the coldest beats we’ve heard all night — classics included — and upon further digging, “The Light is Afraid of the Dark” saw release the track back in 2013. Here’s my favorite new record of 2019, ironically. Soundcloud link

After this smooth jam, Yasiin just stood to the side… the beat dropped… and out came Talib Kweli rapping the first verse of “Get By”. Surprise: flawlessly executed. Like seriously, the pause, the initial confusion of “what is happening?!”, and the euphoria of the crowd as we rapped every word. A hip hop show bucket list has always been seeing Black Star perform together, and in one glorious moment, I could ✅ next to that. The clip I got doesn’t do it 100% justice, but just because no one had their phone out for the surprise drop.

What better way to end your glimpse at what turned out to be one hour and 20 minutes of raw hip hop. Yasiin hopped from one song to the next, and only missed a word when he chose to stylistically sing it for a reverberating echo within The Regent.

Yasiin thanked us for the most valuable thing we can offer to each other: our time and took a well-deserved bow and victory dance to the festive “Tudo Que Você Podia Ser” (now in my rotation too, lol.)

Now if only we had roses to throw to him at the end. Bravo! 👏👏🌹🌹

BONUS:

@hetalbot started all the post-show footage with the top-rated post on r/hiphopheads so scroll through here for more fan clips, commentary from other attendees, and even links to more of Yasiin’s catalogue (see: REcstatic).

Please credit GWHH & @hetalbot for any re-sharing of the videos (and check out my personal post on the show @sgt.tibs !)

Lastly, I was unable to get footage, but here’s a dope one of the other surprise guest: Fatlip from Pharcyde performing “Passing Me By”. And a shoutout to Supernatural (freestyling king), Oakland R&B singer ASTU, and DJ Trauma for opening the show in reverse order. Supernatural got everyone hype with rhymes touching on the first few rows. ASTU had everyone in their feels with a few of her sultry tunes. And DJ Trauma had multiple DJ sets to transition it all together: namely the highly entertaining, sample-only set that became a fun guessing game of what sample associated with what classic hip hop song. We got the full hip hop experience… just another Sunday night in LA. 😎

OK, one more… “The Rape Over” from Yasiin’s 2004 album, The New Danger.

— Sgt. Tibs

Some more gems from Complex Con

Complex Con 18 Recap Sizzle Reel (via @Complex)

Talk about stimulation overload. Complex Con had it all last weekend in Long Beach and as a first-timer, I was simply blown away by the creativity, art, and fashion all on display. In fact, it took me a full week just to sift through everything and continue to reflect about the positive impact and community throughout the two days. Here’s just some of many highlights.

For those unaware, Complex Con is basically the hotbed marketplace for the hip hop culture. Users are first treated to an endless space of brand activations from the biggest names in streetwear and your favorite sneaker companies – all trying to outdo one another.

Around the convention center is a full stage and venue for music performances, an outdoor area for the best LA food trucks and pop-up spots, and my personal favorite: auditoriums for #ComplexConversations — where Complex conducted panel discussions and showcased their original programming (from Hot Ones to Real Late with Peter Rosenberg).

The conversations ranged from Sneaker of the Year to an analysis and communal endeavor to improve upon society’s ills today. All of it inspiring, especially the latter if you can imagine. Here’s a succinct example via the young jedi Jaden Smith:

https://twitter.com/gowherehiphop/status/1061808776401973248

Skim below for some more #content. I had some fun creating a couple Insta Stories for each day.

Day 1 features some snaps of the Complex Con scene, Takashi x OVO, the Sneaker of the Year Panel with Allen Iverson, and even yours truly and Maksim Presence (peep that Gary Vee interview!)

…and Day 2 features a bunch of celebrity cameos (everyone from Nas to Karreuche to Dennis Rodman) and concludes with some more gems from Jaden Smith.

DAY 1:

DAY 2:

And now for some photos! All of the below is via @Complex.

Complex Con 2018 Host: Takashi Murakami

 

‘Women Behind The Lens’ #ComplexConversations with Issa Rae, Lena Waithe, Karena Evans, Nadeska Alexis, Yara Shahidi, hosted by: Jemele Hill

 

The Cadillac Experience My personal favorite. That grid moved. 👀

 

adidas

 

Pusha T @ adidas

 

Ty Dolla $ign @ Puma

 

Future headlines Day 2

 

First We Feast Lagoon

 

Complex Art Experience

 

@MichaelPurdie dunks at the And-1 court

* * * *

Let’s conclude this with The Answer. Complex posted this fascinating sit-down interview for 24 minutes as A.I. shares stories with Michael Jordan, Biggie, and how he even came up with some fashion and sneaker trends.

Thank you Complex Con! We’ll be back again next year. 🙏