COMPANY FLOW

It's a little while ago, but yes ART12 travels! And on Tuesday February 24th we found ourselves in this club called Wetlands in New York City's Lower East Side. Thanks to Ket One admission was zero. Nice start of a good evening I must say. There was no doubt about the word "good" because COMPANY FLOW was about to play and we all know they most definitely got the funky Flow.

So there we were. The place was packed and we came in late, so we had to stick with a stand-on-our-toes-somewhere-near-the-bar spot. Advantage: the brewskies were close by, but the stage was hard to see. All around us kids was dropping their own lyrics surrounded by some head-nodding homies. New York HipHop to the maxx.

A while later the Company started doing their thing. They started off with some Dope beats created LIVE on stage. After a couple of their stupid fresh beats the rappers started kicking in. What I liked a lot were the sharp, understandable lyrics, 'cause they were pronounced clearly in combination with a good soundsystem. (Something that's rare in Amsterdam.) The lyrics were original. For example one about the perspectives of a city-pigeon. There was some kicking against people that think they all down with rap because their rapworld's on the Web (Don't look at us now!) or maybe it was for the people in the industry who make rap-record after record only by using 70's and 80's hits. Company Flow gave their opinion with: "You can download the shit, but I'm on some flesh and blood...."

After a short while it was time for freestyles. Goretex Medina and Big D (who said he's from the Ultra Magnetic MC's and did have that special Ultra style) rocked the freestyle microphones. ore sharp lines were flowing' like the river Nile. There was some mad dissing against Busta Rhymes (who wasn't in the house). They were dissing him because he's dragging bodyguards wherever he goes. And also Sir Menelik got dissed in a hardcore way. During this freestyle session more and more MC's waiting for their turn crowded the stage. From this point the beer started doing' its thing too and we sort of lost attention. Then all of a sudden the music died, lights went on and everybody had to go. It was only one or two o'clock! For us this was strange, 'cause usually in Amsterdam there's always some after-chilling: when the mics close the DJ continues spinning for another hour and you can dance before going home.

Despite of this small culture shock we had the good evening we expected to have. Once more Company Flow showed they are one of the more unique entertainers in HipHop.

(Mickey)