So Madlib last night was pretty rubbish.

Great producer-average rapper-really average drummer.

Highlight of the night was J-Rocc, who is without doubt one of the finest party hiphop djs
I ever seen. Great tunes, incredible technique and a really natural understanding of how to build the crowd and pretty much the only person on stage all night with any sort of stage presence.

It was a damn shame because it was building up to be a killer night-KOKO was packed, you could literally smell the anticipation, I think everyone was really excited by seeing what Madlib would do in a live environment-how the undeniable studio virtuosity would translate.
Bottom line-it didn’t.

The rest of the night was kinda hit and miss. Perci P was nigh on inaudible, Dudley Perkins (who I really dig) just didn’t have the stage presence to maintain the interest of a venue that size and Georgia Anne Mudrow was just straight-up poor.I’m all up for the whole experimenting with jazz tinged vocals, but it really did sound like she was singing to
completely different backing track, I’d like to hope it was a monitoring issue but it seemed to be so wilfully offkey that the overriding impression was of someone walking dangerously close to the ‘crimes done in the name of jazz’ section of the record shop.

So Madlib came on, rocked some typically off kilter flow, which kinda works in an album context cause the production’s so dope. Live, the enthusiasm of the crowd carried the first couple of tracks and then the gaping hole marked ’stage presence’ became the elephant on stage that was harder and harder to ignore. ‘The Red’ briefly brought the crowd to life, but there are only so many times shouting ‘Raise your hand if you love money’ and playing the ‘Respect to Jdilla‘ card can take the place of actually engaging with the audience.

Worse was to come. The much hyped ‘watch Madlib play drums’ section was proof in any more was needed that Studio Genius does not necessarily equal Live Performer. As all but the most hardcore drifted toward the exits, the sound of Madlib’s 30-40 minute drum solo echoed around an increasing empty KOKO and we were left thinking of the emperor, his new clothes and the carelessness of people who should be trying to build not destroy hard won reputations.