April 23, 2001

GZA / Tony Touch / Afu Ra / Freddy Foxxx: Madison, Wisconsin Orpheum Theater

Freddy Foxxx blows everyone else off the stage in Madison...

The format for the big closing concert of University Of Wisconsin at Madison's 'Hip-Hop As A Movement' conference is a little like that of Nashville's Grand Old Opry, with each act being given enough time to make an impression but not enough to embarrass themselves. The performers are a decidedly mixed bag, ranging from unknowns (Armareda) to the much buzzed-about (Jane Doe, The Bad Seed) to cult faves (Afu-Ra, Freddie Foxxx) and the odd Wu-Tanger (GZA).

A native Wisconsinite opens the show with a plucky but indifferently received set, immediately followed by New Yorker Armareda, whose less-than-remarkable performance earns her a steady smattering of boos and catcalls. Next big thing The Bad Seed follows with a superbly confident run-through of material from his highly anticipated debut, following up a slew of snide, attitude-intensive underground joints with a disconcerting final song addressed to an aborted fetus he would have fathered. It's a bizarre, intense, creepy moment, as Seed lets down the shtick for a few minutes and delivers a few impassioned, choked-up verses while clutching a teddy bear representing the unfortunate zygote.

Jane Doe's next with a sharp, well-received but unnecessarily brief set, immediately followed by Afu-Ra, who kicks the show into high gear with his acrobatic, martial-arts-derived stage moves and high-voltage flow. Delivering his high-minded, socially conscious rhymes with an almost messianic urgency, Ra transforms fans into followers with a set that blows away everyone who came before him.

Looking like a chubby, African-American Popeye with his giant biceps and shaved head, Freddy Foxxx keeps things lively with an impassioned, mic-wrecking set that draws heavily on his superb recent comeback album, 'Industry Shakedown'. Playing up his label-hating, super-thug bad boy image to a hilt, Foxxx tears through a set that positively seethes with dark energy.

Faced with the unenviable task of following such larger-than-life performers, superstar DJ/producer/rapper/break-dancer Tony Touch can't help but suffer by comparison as he runs through an underwhelming set hampered by terrible sound and constant technical glitches.

By the time GZA, one of the more overlooked and underrated members of the Wu-Tang Clan, gets on stage it was already well past one in the morning. Like Touch's hapless set, GZA's adequate but unremarkable performance couldn't help but seem a little lifeless and arbitrary coming after the charismatic likes of Afu-Ra and Freddy Foxxx. Alternating classic Wu-Tang material with songs from his two excellent solo albums, GZA, seemed a little tired and distracted, giving his set a distinctly anti-climactic feel. The evening ended with a whimper rather than a bang, as GZA, was upstaged and over-shadowed by more colorful, charismatic MCs yet again.

Nathan Rabin