levanza nia: Madlib, J Rocc, Lefto & Thunderhesit @ Petrol Antwerp

Deciding to head off to Antwerp on a long weekend for some city sightseeing but primarily to try and catch Madlib, J Rocc and Egon from Los Angeles’ Stones Throw perform on the Saturday was a bit of a risk as the Petrol club who were hosting the Belgian leg of Madlib, J Rocc & Egon’s European tour didn’t sell any tickets prior to the evening of the event. However, being familiar with Madlib as an eclectic musical mad scientist and having seen him live twice before with contrastingly different yet equally brilliant sets made me decide to splash my Euros anyway and head down south the border.

The Petrol Club is also a place worth mentioning with its location right in the middle of the Antwerp docklands, a good mile’s walk from the last tram stop from the city centre. We were lucky that some other out-of-towners (Parisians, Londoners, Brusselites, you name it) were also looking for the same venue as trying to walk to the damn place without ever having been there was confusing to say the least. Rows and rows of industrial containers would have to suffice as scenery for the seemingly never ending walk too. Yet get there we did and once we got there the location of the club suddenly all made sense. It was a proper underground club with a semi open air concert hall with asphalt as the dance floor and two screens on either side of the room displaying either cheesy 1980s action movies or vintage 1950s porn. Smoking in enclosed spaces had become illegal in Belgium since last year yet Petrol might as well have been in Amsterdam, Kingston or California with ganja smoke filling up the joint. To anyone familiar with Madlib’s THC soaked takes of hip-hop, jazz, funk and reggae this lax attitude to the ‘erb was quite appropriate.

We did have to wait a bit for the main acts to come out with Belgium’s very own DJ Lefto opening the set, providing all the hip-hop heads with their fix of rap classics, funk cuts and club bangers for an hour or so before Canadian acts Thunderheist took over with a whole heartily fun set as MC Isis and her sound-smith Grahm Zilla truly rocked the crowd with their interactive set. As entertaining as the two opening sets were, the crowd went bonkers when J Rocc and Madlib entered the DJ booth with J Rocc starting the show proper at 2am with a turntable purist pleasing 10 minute cutting and mixing of the classic 1973 break Apache (by Michael Viner’s Incredible Bongo Band) followed by entries from James Brown, J Dilla and countless rare and funky rap 45s before Madlib got on the turntable decks.

Now to get an idea of how versatile Madlib (or Quasimoto, Yesterday's New Quinter, DJ Rels, or his many other pseudonyms depending on what musical mood he's in) is, I’ve seen Madlib dee-jay some jazz cuts over live drum playing, Madlib manning the drums in a spaced out jazz break down, Madlib on the microphone dropping rhymes and Madlib providing ridiculous funky samples for a team of virtuoso drummers on the Brasilintime tour so this performance made me anxious with anticipation. This Antwerp excursion had him deck the turntables with the experimental mask with both him & J Rocc working on the 4 turntables between them with some mind mending avant garde scratching and cutting play which will endear and entice some but perhaps alienate others (that’s the whole point of being avant garde). And just when you think things might go really weird and challenging the duo would drop some Jackson 5 or other familiar heart warming samples mixed with some highly off-kilter beats. He also went political with a superbly timed vocal sample of "Ask not what you can do for your country, but ask what the f**k has it ever done for you" added into the mix. To top things off, the crowd was treated to some exclusive unreleased tracks from the highly anticipated Madvillain 2 album (the original 2004 Madvillain album pitted Madlib ‘s production over MF DOOM’s rapping and had music critics falling over each other in praise of Madvillainy). And for someone often branded with the ‘genius’ mantle, Madlib is one humble and fun guy to talk to when I met up with him briefly in Antwep’s The Record Collector vinyl shop and backstage after the show. And that sentiment goes for J Rocc and Stones Throw general manager Egon too.