OK, I should've posted something about my trip to SD before this, but I have to say some things.

Tonight I went to see Daara J with my sister, over at 12 Galaxies on Mission in SF. The show was to start at 9:00, and when we got there at 9:40, there was practically no one there. About 5 minutes later a flood of hipsters (my sister remarked that they were all wearing expensive vintage outfits and $200+ shoes) paraded in. Then Dj Mike Relm proceeds to take the stage. Then for some reason I got a headache. It is probably because he was HORRIBLE! Taking a cue from DJ Shadow's Rebirth of a Nation, he proceeded to cut up various tracks with video accompaniment. The thing is, he was trying to cut up things that were already perfect, unlike in Rebirth of a Nation where there actually is a message to it. While he can scratch ( apparently he was the 1999 International Turntable Federation USA Champ), his choice of beats was absolutely horrid, and with the video on top it was downright atrocious. Two cases in point:
1) He decided to cut up the fax machine destruction scene in Office Space with Beck's Loser. Why? The Geto Boys' Still was already the perfect song to accompany that. Loser doesn't even come close. What works better for a bunch of guys beating the crap out of a piece of office equiptment: "Back up in yo' ass with the ressurection" or "Soy un perdidor, I'm a loser baby so why don't you kill me" (We went for a walk and perused Ritmo Latino for most of the remainder of his set after this).
We asked the bouncer how long he would be on, who said he had an hour long set(!!!!!). When we came back, he was killing the Chappelle's show bit where he brings on John Mayer et al to show what makes different ethnic groups dance. Again, this doesn't make sense without the original music.
"White People Can Dance"
Here's a great example of the all-around stereotyping humor that the show exceeds at. Dave brings John Mayer with him to see if white people can in fact dance, and if—as Dave postulates—it depends on the music. Sure enough, the white folks get down when John rips with the electric guitar. Next stop is a Harlem barber shop, where the guitar fails miserably. But some drum beats get the joint hopping, and when an electric piano is added the Latinos join in. Dave's rendition of the theme to The Jeffersons at the end of the show is priceless.
He also managed to butcher, before his set was done, Lennon's Imagine, A Jackson 5 tune (with the subtitle 'He's innocent'), some classic Run DMC, and finally, Herbie Hancock's Rockit. Again, why? With his stature, he should know that Mix-Master Mike already cut the crap out of Rockit several years ago, which was also done in collaboration with Hancock himself. Is he jealous that MMM is more famous?

Next up was Lateef the Truth Speaker of Quannum Projects. Him and his crew (which included Relm on the tables scratching, which is definately his strong suit as long as he's not expected to provide a beat) proceeded to give a performance that was one notch above generic. First of all, who the fuck named him a truth speaker? He calls women "ho's," and second of all, he performed only one concious song, which was probably the most generic formulation possible of an anti-bush, anti-war song. I thought Paris' last album really sucked (notwithstanding all of the hype) but it's miles ahead of Lateef's work. As for why I consider it generic, I place a limit on how many times you can refer to waving/throwing up your hands. 3 per act is pushing it. 4 and it's an obvious sign that you're not that great with a crowd (cf KRS-One for a good, prolific example of a non-generic hip-hop performance also cf Dialated Peoples for the most generic over-hyped performance I've ever seen). What managed to save this, however, was some of the production. Fatboy Slim and DJ Shadow have managed to produce some damn catchy tunes for mister "truth" speaker (oh, how this begs for Foucauldian analysis).

Finally, who we had come for, Daara J (aagh, my writing is horrible now) took the stage. All of the horror and mediocrity from the first two performers vanished. They ripped through two tracks off their first album (which has not been released in the US), and a surprising amount of people seemed to know them by heart. This either means that the crowd was a bunch of fake-ass white people (quite possibly) or they downloaded it (as have I). Back to the subject of whitey, this was quite possibly the whitest hip-hop show I've ever been to, including those in Santa Cruz (although I've avoided Hiero shows because I fear that this is what they would be like). And whitey (I wonder where this racialized hatred came from?), at least in the front row, was drunk and annoying as fuck. My sister was right up in front of the stage, as was I at the beginning of the act, but a bunch of really annoying girls pushed their way in between us. One of them kept pushing my sister both too close to the stage and near some broken glass. She almost kicked her ass. This other (pale ass cracker) guy in a Senegal jersey could not keep in the space he had for himself, and proceeded to bump into everyone. They tried to get the crowd to dance (left left right right), but this guy just swayed out of rhythm, making it impossible.

Getting away from whitey, they proceeded to rip through the show, putting on an hour and a half long set that truly kicked ass and does not warrant the same level of critical writing as above.

The show ended, and my sister and I walked outside to catch the 14 Mission, which we ran to catch. This was yet another trip. I'm not sure I remember being on a ride like this. Two drunks, a schizophrenic, and one of the drunks tried to follow us after we got off the bus, while my sister screams "you think I'm stupid, motherfucker!" Ahh, public transit.