| Tour
Dates |
| 09/15/05 |
B.B. King's
Blues Club - New York, NY |
|
09/16/05
|
The Away Team,
Legacy, Darien Brockington, Joe Scudda,
Chaundon Trocadero - Philadelphia, PA
|
| 09/17/05 |
The Away Team,
Legacy, Darien Brockington, Joe Scudda,
Chaundon- Paradise Club - Boston, MA |
| 09/18/05 |
The Away Team,
Legacy, Darien Brockington, Joe Scudda,
Chaundon Higher Ground - Burlington,
VT |
| 09/19/05 |
Les Foufounes
Electriques - Montreal, QC |
| 09/21/05 |
Century Lounge
- Providence, RI |
| 09/23/05 |
Pearl Street
- Northampton, MA |
|
09/24/05 |
The Away Team,
Legacy, Darien Brockington, Joe Scudda,
Chaundon Ottobar - Baltimore, MD |
| 09/25/05 |
Black Cat
- Washington, DC |
| 09/26/05 |
local TBA
- The Dame - Lexington, KY |
| 09/27/05 |
Apache Cafe
- Atlanta, GA |
| 09/29/05 |
Common Grounds
- Gainesville, FL |
| 09/30/05 |
Scratch Tangeman
University Center Great Hall - Cincinnati,
OH |
| 10/02/05 |
Club Downunder
- Tallahassee, FL |
| 10/03/05
|
Fuel - Jacksonville,
FL |
| 10/04/05 |
The Away Team,
Legacy, Darien Brockington, Joe Scudda,
Chaundon - The Social - Orlando, FL |
| 10/06/05 |
The Away Team,
Legacy, Darien Brockington, Joe Scudda,
Chaundon - The Orange Peel - Asheville,
NC |
| 10/07/05 |
The Away Team,
Legacy, Darien Brockington, Joe Scudda,
Chaundon - Cat's Cradle - Carrboro,
NC |
| 10/08/05 |
The
Room - Charlotte, NC |
In the minstrel shows of the late 1800’s,
white and Black performers would blacken their
faces with cork and perform as stereotypical,
grossly exaggerated racist caricatures of
Black culture.
Fast forward two hundred years and Black people
are still performing in these shows, celebrating
senseless materialism, excessive violence,
and blatant misogyny. Only today, they aren’t
known as minstrels. They’re now known
as rap stars. Chicken and watermelon have
been replaced with rims and jewelry, turning
hip-hop into one big modern-day minstrel show.
Such is the central idea behind Little Brother’s
highly anticipated and wildly imaginative
sophomore album, “THE MINSTREL SHOW.”
The Durham, North Carolina-based trio of emcees
Phonte and Big Pooh, and producer 9th Wonder,
struck critical gold with their 2003 debut,
“THE LISTENING,” a soulfully vibrant
concept album that focused on a day in the
life of a fictional radio station (WJLR, Justus
League Radio).
Picking up where “THE LISTENING”
left off, “THE MINSTREL SHOW”
opens with the introduction of the fictional
television network, UBN (U Black Niggers).
After WJLR is purchased by UBN in a corporate
takeover funded by the Atlantic Group, the
station finds a hit with its new series, “The
Minstrel Show,” starring Little Brother.
The underlying theme is that while the group
finds success and escapes their humble beginnings,
they ultimately pay a price for it by sacrificing
their dignity. Conceptualized like a low-budget
episode of “Saturday Night Live,”
complete with commercial breaks and musical
guests, “THE MINSTREL SHOW” is
a darkly humorous album that is equal parts
soul and satire.
“To me, ‘THE MINSTREL SHOW’
is ultimately about responsibility,”
says emcee Phonte. “As rappers, we have
to take responsibility for what we say, and
for the images we portray to our people. If
not, we’re doing essentially what minstrel
shows did: perpetuating negative images and
reinforcing those negative stereotypes.”
Producer 9th Wonder offers a different take
on “THE MINSTREL SHOW” and its
role in today’s hip-hop climate: “This
album is basically us holding a mirror up
to our community and saying, ‘Look what
has happened to our art form, look how low
our standards have dropped as far as what
we accept as good music.’ If we can
make people at least think about that, then
we’ve done our job.”
“We knew we would probably make a lot
of people mad,” says Rapper Big Pooh
about the album’s controversial title.
“That’s just the price you pay
for taking a stand. There’s a lot of
craziness in hip-hop right now, and hopefully
with this album we can bring about some type
of balance.”
With songs such as “All For You,”
which focuses on the pain of being an absentee
father, and “Slow It Down,” which
discusses the complexity of male-female relationships,
“THE MINSTREL SHOW” explores a
wide spectrum of topics that speak directly
to everyday people. Although much of the subject
matter is serious in nature, the album is
not without its comical moments. In “Cheatin,”
starring Phonte in an uproarious turn as his
soul-singing alter ego Percy Miracles, the
group takes time to mock present-day R&B.
“Minstrelsy doesn’t only occur
in rap music,” says Phonte about the
track. “A lot of people might ask why
we would take time to satirize R&B on
a hip-hop album, but nowadays the two genres
are virtually the same. A lot of these R&B
records are just as silly and juvenile as
rap is.”
Formed in 2001 in Durham, North Carolina,
Little Brother first appeared on the hip-hop
scene with their 2003 ABB Records release,
“THE LISTENING.” The album immediately
struck a chord with the rap community, garnering
praise from the likes of Pete Rock and The
Roots, as well as catching the ears of Jay-Z,
who recruited producer 9th Wonder to craft
tracks for him (“Threat”) and
Destiny’s Child (“Girl”
and “Is She The Reason”). After
swift sales and critical praise from virtually
all of the mainstream media, the group inked
a deal with Atlantic Records in 2004.
“Although we’ve been blessed with
a bigger record deal, our goals remain the
same,” says 9th Wonder. “Our job
is to make dope records. That’s what
Little Brother is here to do, and that is
what we will continue to do.”
|
Check
the E-card to listen to some
complete
Little Brother tracks from The Minstrel
Show.
|
Don't
forget to play the "Who's
That" game to see a bonus
video of Phonte performing as Percy
Miracles.
|
• "I'm so friggin' jealous
of Little Brother. Hip Hop the way I
love it -- tight beats, on point lyrics?
What!!! I made 4,887,234 people listen
to 'Whatever You Say' at gunpoint, and
I don't even own a gun!" - ?uestlove
of The Roots
• "The Listening" kinda
brings me back to the days of when the
90's was poppin'. It's more realistic
than what I'm hearing today and sounds
like these guys put a lot of work into
it. I love this album. Classic."
- Pete Rock
• "This iz the best hip-hop
album I heard n a long time…dope
beatz…dope rhymez…..I wish
this waz all hip-hop…thank you…I
needed dat" - DJ Jazzy Jeff/ A
Touch of Jazz
• "Little Brother is straight-up
hot. Reminds me of the glory days of
Tribe, De La and Native Tongues. It's
fantastic to hear this kind of vibe
out there. We need more albums like
this one!" - DJ Spinna
• "Mama gave birth to a whole
new generation of soul children and
they are Phonte, Big Pooh, and 9th Wonder…it
shouldn't be long before Little Brother
reaches bigger status." - URB Magazine
• "Little Brother creates
songs of the South that merge soulful,
post - Native Tongue musical sensibilities
with likeable down-home, down-to-Earth
charm." - XXL Magazine
• "…Prior to "Raise
Up", NC has still yet to really
emerge from relative obscurity and establish
a musical identity, that is until now.
Enter Little Brother, North Carolina's
freshest crew, period." - Elemental
Magazine
• "Easily the best new group
in years" - Fat Beats Retail Store
NYC
• "We cannot keep this record
in stock- this is one of our best selling
new releases of the year! We can't believe
the incredible buzz Little Brother is
getting as a new, virtually unknown
group." - Hiphopsite.com
• "Not since Tribe's Midnight
Marauders have I bumped an LP this hard
or this much, from beginning to end.
9th's beats make we want to give up
radio and start producing. Word, I even
made my bird go out and pick up a copy."
- Fuzzy Fantabulous, Host Big Boy's
Neighborhood Power 106 Los Angeles
• "There has not been this
much buzz surrounding a new group since
A Tribe Called Quest!" - Amoeba
Los Angeles
• "When we found out they
had been signed by Beni and ABB records,
we knew we had to check them out. It
only took one listen to the CD to know
that Little Brother had the elements
needed to get people to notice. Tight
production, original flows, a good mix,
and a choice sequencing of tracks kept
our heads nodding from start to finish.
When discussing who to first feature
in 2003, we thought it would be a good
time to take things back to the fundamentals."
- Okayplayer.com, Philly, PA
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