Blaze It Up

Rap and Rage rule at the fiery Rock the Bells festival

BY THOMAS GOLIANOPOULOS / PHOTOGRAPHS BY STEVEN BRAHMS

Ghostface and Method Man inspire crowd to wave hands in air, fail to make them just not care.

Zack de la Rocha doesn’t like being misquoted.

And during Rock the Bells at New York City’s Randall’s Island on July ²⁸, the Rage Against

the Machine frontman set the record straight.

“A couple of months ago, those fascist

motherfuckers at the Fox News Network…suggested

that we said the president should be assassinated,” he

said, referring to the brouhaha following comments he

made at April’s Coachella festival. “No, what we said

was that he should be brought to trial as a war criminal

and should be hung and shot. That’s what we said.”

It may be a distinction lost on most, but the fact

that de la Rocha cared enough to clarify his position,

especially in an age when branding trumps beliefs,

was refreshing. This was the first of four shows the reunited rap-rockers would headline on this 16-date

package tour, and their fans were out in force: lots

of trucker tans, tribal tattoos, and nipple rings. But

Rock the Bells is essentially a hip-hop festival. And

today that means rappers sermonizing about the

state of the genre. (Gee, thanks, Nas.) Longtime cult

fave Pharoahe Monch punctuated an outstanding

set with his biggest hit, “Simon Says,” and a quick

diatribe: “People are saying hip-hop is dead. I ain’t

with that.” Said Parrish Smith of EPMD, “Hip-hop’s

alive. It ain’t dead.” Even some fans got their two cents in with T-shirts reading HOW CAN HIP-HOP BE DEAD IF WU-TANG IS FOREVER?

It was Mos Def, however, who made the day’s most

accurate comment: “Yo, it’s hot as balls up here, too,” he told the crowd sweltering in 90-degree heat and

extreme humidity. “During my set, there were people

with their eyes rolling back in the head, and

passing out,” Talib Kweli told me later.

“That’s a scary thing, when you’re looking at

someone and then they’re gone, collapsed.”

The temperature didn’t seem to bother the

Brooklyn MC during his appearance with

Mos Def. The duo, who released an album as Black Star in 1998, displayed fluid stage

chemistry, even though the set was largely

improvised.

Public Enemy also had their share of

spontaneous moments. Backed by a live

band, the legendary group opened with crisp, boom-

ing renditions of “Night of the Living Baseheads,”

“Welcome to the Terrordome,” and “Bring the Noise”

(featuring Anthrax’s Scott Ian on guitar). But it was

downhill from there. Chuck D and crew played the

original “Shut Em Down,” not the more popular Pete

Rock remix, and couldn’t properly re-create the cold,

skeletal beat of “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos.”

Then, Flavor Flav took over. “I’d like to thank you for making my show the No. ¹ show in cable history,”