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DMC topped off his three-day extravaganza with a riveting performance on Friday night, while sharing the limelight with local musicians and producers Flipperachi, DJ Outlaw and local band Phat Nutz.
It started, however, with a moment of silence. Darryl ‘DMC’ McDaniels called for quiet in memory of the late Run DMC member Jam Master Jay before launching into an hour-long set.
After that thoughtful gesture, he broke into the hit It’s Like That. Rocking a black AC/DC tee, sweat beads glistened on his forehead and led to the protruding veins in his neck as he belted out lyrics with conviction. His official DJ, Charlie Chan Soprano, joined him to mix the tracks and keep things fresh.
Of course, it’s nice when musicians do something unique for a performance. The rapper normally has a harder lyrical flow, but he decided to slow it down and do something different by serenading the ladies in the audience.
One of the cool things about having a pioneer of hip hop culture perform is one gets a pretty good sense of the artist’s personal tastes. DMC made it very clear that nothing can come close to one of his favourite brands, as he started into his next number, My Adidas.
One dancer in particular had on a playful red sequinned Adidas dress that glittered against the strobe lights. There was also a gentleman dressed like the late rap legend, Tupac Shakur. I wondered if maybe I should have stepped up my game in some cool kicks and some bold old school sunglasses and a retro basketball cap as well.
The next song transitioned into full heavy metal mode with a new track called Fired Up that DMC is launching with Rob Dukes’ band, Generation Kill. It almost felt like I walked into a Metallica concert instead of DMC. The guitar riffs were so extreme that I felt the reverberations shoot through my body and rattle my spine. That’s the beauty of collaboration … a powerful and intense fusion of styles and sounds.
Needless to say, this track garnered a lot of attention and cheers from the crowd and DMC informed us that this track will officially be released on May 31, which coincidentally happens to be the star’s birthday.
Apparently DMC also has a lady-stalker that he is quite wary of. He wanted to make sure that she wasn’t hiding in the crowd somewhere, so he made a point to hop off stage and meet some of the females to make sure she wasn’t lurking amongst them. He politely introduced himself and verified that none of them were the bad kind of crazy.
Once he confirmed that she was nowhere in sight, he climbed back on stage to belt out Mary, Mary, in which he lifted his shirt up and powerfully projected his abs outward. I wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be attractive or intimidating, as I was still in the process of regaining a normal heart rate after hearing Fired Up. He followed that number with Black Betty.
Bahrain-based band Phat Nutz joined in on the festivities and played along to one of Run DMC’s most recognisable tracks, Tricky. DMC started jumping around on stage while waving his arms in the air and led into smashing performances of the hits Walk This Way and Seven Minutes of Funk.
He mixed things up at the end and had Flipperachi join him for a fluid freestyle performance and closed the show down with Run DMC’s Rock Box while the crowd roared with excitement.
Overall, a perfectly timed set before an audience of immense energy. It was another success for Jam Up organiser Jude D’Souza and his team who have created a music-based platform to attract global stars with the sole objective of empowering Bahrainis and Bahrain-based musicians.
