Phife Dawg +David Hodges & The Honest Gentleman + Gee Wunder @ Club Soda

Sunday, February 19th was Baby Phife’s return to Montreal after an almost two decade hiatus.

The night started off around 8pm with an exclusive screening of the controversial documentary Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest. This was the first time I had the opportunity to see this film because it had only played for a very limited time in Montreal when it was first released in 2011. Now this isn’t a review about the film so I don’t want to get too deep into dissecting it’s pros and cons right now but it is definitely a must watch for any ATCQ fan, hip-hop fan or fan that puts their love and faith in the hands of artists who in the end are just people driven by personal agendas, personalities and needs. I will say that I do think the director put a little too much focus on the Phife/Q-Tip beef, but the film remains a precious documentation of one of the most influential hip-hop groups of all time.

Now as much as I highly appreciated the screening of Beats, Rhymes & Life, it seriously brought the energy level down in the crowd. Gauging by the dominant age group out that night, I feel like at least 50% of the crowd hadn’t even know that ATCQ had broken up on a bitter note so seeing this film right before Phife’s performance was a bit dream shattering.

Gee Wunder, who opened the show, received the immediate backlash of this low energy; people barely stood during his performance and those who were standing were clearly still digesting the film. Fortunately, Raz Fresco, a 17 year old Toronto native, managed to revive some life into the audience with his youthful energy and slick flow. By the end of his set the sound people at Club Soda had finally understood how to amp a hip-hop show so his verses were coming out crisp and clear. The last opener was David Hodges, a Montreal native, and his band The Honest Gentleman. Now this is something I love about Montreal artists, they’re really big on posses. It’s rarely ever just an MC and DJ, which brings a whole new level of life to the performance. With his 4-piece band and two featuring artists, David Hodges managed to get die-hard ATCQ fans swaying to a not-so-hip-hop-but-kinda sound. What was nice about his style was that the way he flipped from singing to rapping was as unassuming as our national Frenglish and opened the door to music genres that are usually unexplored at purely hip-hop shows.

Around 11pm, the five-foot assassin hit the stage with hard energy. He fed the crowd with a grand range of ATCQ classics and a bit of his new material. There were a few moments where his diabetes was affecting Phife’s rapping energy, but he filled in those spots quite smoothly by talking to the crowd and sharing his charismatic personality. His whole set was mad intimate, which was really nice for my die-hard ATCQ fanatic soul but looking around in the crowd I realized that this wasn’t the experience for all. A big part of the crowd didn’t know the lyrics to some of the classics and looked mad awkward when Phife would turn the mic to them. I realized then that these were mainly kids who have never experienced ATCQ in all its grandeur and only really know of Phife from a diluted version of his legacy. Phife’s show was great but his performance, the venue and the crowd were mismatched. Club Soda is too well lit and un-intimate to appropriately fit the vibe of the night and the crowd seemed to be expecting some sort of "Rock the Bells" type performance where you watch in awe and aren’t required to participate.

All in all, it’s clear that Phife Dawg is still the real steez and owns the lyrical game. Though if he were to come to Montreal again, I would much rather see him in a low stage venue where we could vibe eye to eye.

-MF Gold co-hosts Say Word! with Caity every Wednesday from 3-4pm