Surly Girl Saloon’s Weekend Parking Lot Blowout III, July 5 2008
Fly Union (myspace)
Recently, a friend of mine asked me why I don’t review Columbus Hip Hop. The reason I gave was my unfamiliarity with the scene. At that point, I had not yet heard Fly Union.
My first exposure to Fly Union was at Surly Girl Saloon’s 3rd annual Weekend Parking Lot Blowout. My second exposure is listening to their music as I write this.
To be as blunt as possible, Fly Union represents virtually everything I despise about modern Hip Hop. Shout outs, commercialization, uninspiring lyrics and beats, derivative sound, shameless and pointless sampling. the list goes on and on.
Seeing them live, I was less than impressed. They wasted more than half of their 40 minute set by instructing the crowd to “put your hands up,” and “When I say fly, you say U.” That’s actually a pretty conservative estimate. I think I only heard about 5 minutes total of actual rapping. Four guys on stage and NONE of them rap?
Am I at a Mim’s show?
At one point towards the end of their set, during yet another call for the crowd to throw their hands up, the DJ played the opening riff from The Clash’s “Straight to Hell.” I thought, “how many rappers are going to sample this song now? It must be the new ‘hot’ track to sample.” But no, they weren’t sampling The Clash, they were sampling M.I.A. In fact, they weren’t even sampling, as the DJ simply played the fucking M.I.A. song! As in, he popped in the CD, and hit ‘Play’.
Listening to their tracks on Myspace, I’m still not impressed. It seems that all they are trying to do is sound like every other mainstream, commercial rapper on heavy rotation on Mtv or BET. Listen to just one of their songs, and you will be saying to yourself, “Gee, this sounds like [insert lame rapper’s name] with [insert lame DJ/producer’s name].”
Originality is NOT a bad thing. To me, Fly Union is the rap equivalent of all the lame-ass rock bands that try (and unfortunately succeed) to sound like Chavelle and Jack’s Mannequin; a fucking travesty.
I wouldn’t mind having someone volunteer to write Hip Hop reviews for me, as I have no time to add more concerts to my calendar. But please God, PLEASE, don’t make me listen to this derivative, pointless shit again.