Thirty Three Jones | Desktop Site
Last night Chachi held an album listening party (that he managed to get Scion to sponsor!) over at APT in Manhattan to play a few songs off of his upcoming cd and to showcase some of the other artists that he's been working with up in Rhode Island. APT has a bit of a reputation as being a gathering point for elitist hipsters, not the type of place I would normally roll through, but the crowd last night was surprisingly diverse. Chachi came through with a full band, three singers, several other rappers, a clarinetist, and an entourage of Portuguese calendar models.
Unfortunately, I forgot my camera so you'll just have to take my word for it. I realize that a blogger going to any sort of social gathering these days without bringing along a camera and a cellphone with access to twitter is almost unheard of, so I will do my best never to let that happen again. Since I don't have any pictures - but judging by the paparazzi-level of photography going on during the event, rest assured someone will have pictures up by the weekend - I put the above photo, which was the flyer for the event.
I've been hyping Chachi up for a long time now, and while he and I go way back, my enthusiasm is due entirely to the fact that I think he's putting out some of the most original hip hop music right now. But as good as the mp3s are that I've put up of his in the past, there's absolutely no comparison to the live versions. As a performer he's dope, always involving the crowd and even taking it back to the old school days of call and responses. What put the show over the top, however, was the band that he brought with him, the Trenton Street Rockers. I wish more hip hop acts would go that route, using a band to recreate the music rather than just having a dj cue up a prerecorded instrumental, as it makes the show much more spontaneous and, on the whole, sounds a lot better in person. One of the highlights came when the band called upon the clarinetist to reproduce the horn section from the Roc Boys/Make the Road By Walking. At one point, they started playing one of the beats so loud (the beat was from one of Chachi's new songs that, as far as I know, isn't available yet), that the people partying downstairs at the "club" section of APT left the dancefloor and came upstairs to see what was going on.
At the end of the night, Chachi gave out a sampler cd from his upcoming album, About Time, which will be released in December. Here's one of the new songs from the cd:
Chachi featuring Ze - Something For You (produced by J' Depina)
I have an extra copy of Chachi's album sampler to give away. Unfortunately, due to our database troubles there's no way to leave any comments right now, so the first person to email me gets a free cd (and possibly a tshirt, if I can dig one up).
Also, I know a couple of months ago I said that Chachi would be appearing on 106 and Park tonight. BET moved the show to Tuesday, September 9th, when Chachi will be appearing with Ze Jennings to defend his crown as the winner of Wild Out Wednesdays.
Shout out to Riders Against The Storm, Starrs and Murph, Katia Cadet and everyone else I met last night. There were a lot of great artists that performed, and in the coming weeks I'll be doing profiles on as many of them as I can.
8/28/2007 08:35:01 AM posted by Fresh