Talib Kweli (The Seven Tour) at Venue Nightclub, Vancouver, BC – Jan. 25th/17
Photos: Ronan Considine – https://www.instagram.com/soundflashphotography/
Words: John Zee – https://www.instagram.com/johnzee23/
I was raised on 90’s hip hop and I’m blessed to say, I’ve been fortunate to have seen and met a large portion of my favourite artists from that era. However one artist that’s forever been on my “must see live” list that I haven’t crossed off yet, is Talib Kweli. Tonight would be the exception however as I was geared up to see Talib Kweli live at Venue Nightclub for his Seven Tour.
Starting things off was local DJ, Floetic who runs Vancouver’s Emotions Open Mic night. Floetic heated the dancefloor up with funky and progressive beats and mixes. Soon after, K’Valentine took the stage to officially open the show for Kweli. Valentine is a female rapper from Chicago who is on the Seven Tour with Talib and absolutely brought the heat to the Van City crowd. It was my first time hearing of K’Valentine, but her presence, swag, delivery and flow definitely has my attention and I look forward to seeing where she ends up soon.
After Valentines set was finished, Talib didn’t waste any time and quickly jumped onto the stage to greet his eager fans front row. Acknowledging the crowd with plenty of respect and love, delivering daps to everyone he could reach and saluted the rest of the fans he couldn’t touch from the stage. He kicked off his extensive musical catalogue by launching into “Listen” which had the drums and bass notes of the Kwamé produced track sounding real nice as it filled up Venue nightclub.
Talib paid his respects to the likes of the Wu-Tang Clan by mentioning their influence on not only himself, but the entire hip hop culture and the world before dropping his RZA produced joint “Rocket Ships” which features Busta Rhymes.
It was nostalgic to have Kweli run through his catalogue of hits and remind me just how many great songs this man has done. The Kanye West produced “I Try” featuring the legendary Mary J. Blige was proof of just that, as Talib flawlessly delivered the standout single from his album “The Beautiful Struggle”.
Talib graciously received a lit doobie from a fan in the crowd and while enjoying a leisurely drag from the spliff, he took a moment to pay homage to the city of Vancouver and our popular weed culture, which is known around the globe for being some of the best of the planet. This lead him into paying respects to many of our fallen musical icons by the likes of Rick James, which he made known by having Spintelect drop “Mary Jane” to the crowds delight. After Rick, came the Prince tribute and that was a special moment. For those that don’t know, Talib has a storied history with Prince and has met him on several occasions and has even jammed live with him. So knowing that history made his tribute even more special. From there he payed homage to the likes of James Brown, George Michael, Sean Price, Phife Dawg and J. DIlla, making sure to run through several key selections of all their classic joints.
Reflection Eternal was of course well represented, as Talib performed the Hi-Tek produced track “On Mission”, followed by the stand-out song “The Blast”, all while the nostalgic images of the songs video plays on the projector behind Kweli.
It just wouldn’t be right if a Talib Kweli show didn’t have an element of Mos Def aka Yasin Bey dedicated to it. Kweli made sure to shout out his Black Star brethren by performing Mos hit song “Umi Says” to the sea of lighters in the Vancouver crowd.
Kweli had the crowd supporting him heavy and the vibes going strong but many people were eagerly awaiting his Kanye West produced hit single “Get By” and Talib knew it. Being the seasoned showman that he is, Talib didn’t disappoint as he launched into the song by encouraging the entire audience to clap along with the intro. The people in attendance kept the fast claps going until it became a unified, rhythmic sound echoed throughout the club. Building the song intro high like this brought the momentum up several notches and Kweli smashed a home run as he flawlessly killed his set-ending classic.
For a man who tweets by the minute about any and all hot-button issues, Talib didn’t share an overload of rants towards Donald Trump and the state of America as I thought he may have. Of course he did end his set with a few key words for Trump, his supporters and the state of the US, but by this time it was mad late and I stopped remembering things.. sue me. Plus there’s too many rants going on these days to memorize them all, but I do remember Talib toasting the Van City crowd and mentioning how Jameson’s Irish Whiskey and Gingerale was his favourite drink. That’s one of my favourite drinks also, so I respect that 100%. Great show.
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Check out his new single with Styles P that dropped today!