After being spoilt with Hip Hop this year, and I do mean spoilt (i.e. Grandmaster Flash, Jurassic 5, Public Enemy, The Roots, Cypress Hill, Cash Money, Rodney P & Skitz, Lyrical Commission, Downsyde, Hilltop Hoods, Funkoars, DJ Shadow, DJ Craze, Kool Keith, Prince Paul just to name a few) it’s difficult to go from Platnium to Gold. Unfortunately this was the case last night when I saw Naughty by Nature.

Apparently DMC Champ Selekt supported, as well as Reckless DJs who supported Cypress the other night. I missed both of them, catching maybe one or two tracks from reckless which was the same intolerable r’n’b shit that we were reduced to last Friday. Unfortunately there was no Run DMC or Grandmaster Flash tracks to save his set so bored and thirsty I retired to the bar. The place was fairly busy, the dancefloor packed, the crowd young and heaps of little gangsters running around. Soon enough the MC (I believe it was Troy) started hyping, trying to get everyone screaming yet it was a Tuesday night and it did take at least fifteen minutes to get a beer so not many people around me seemed to be screaming or getting into it.

With little to no warning a beat started blaring through the slightly annoying sound system and OPP was being hurled out of Treach & Vin Rock’s well built bodies. This is what got the crowd hyped. Suddenly all those people looking pissed off about the crowd, the sticky floor and the wait at the bar were jumping round, smiling and spilling beer all over themselves. Unfortunately I have never really gotten into Naughty so most of their tracks were news to me. I have however always enjoyed a good show and this they did put on. Their beats were fat, their presence full of bounce and their rhymes tight and well spoken. Their biggest hits – Jamboree, Holiday, Down with OPP and Hip Hop Hooray got everyone moving, even the most hardcore, fully shick little thugs dancing like they were at underage chasers.

I would lastly like to say congratulations to the utter fuckwit that doused the crowd in pepper spray. You should be awarded a prize for your intelligent, mature and respectful behaviour, you should also have been dealt with severely for putting so many people in danger in a crowded space.

They were excellent for what they were, no fuss, no bullshit hip hop party jams, yet unfortunately after seeing artists like J5, Grandmaster Flash and even Hilltop Hoods they just didn’t do it for me. If I was a big Naughty fan I would have been stoked, they were great performers and had a wicked energy and stage presence yet it just wasn’t my scene.