Live Review: Power 106 FM's Cali Christmas at the Gibson Amphitheatre featuring Ice Cube, Chris Brown, Far East Movement, Others

 
The two main headliners at Power 106 FM’s Cali Christmas at the Gibson Amphitheatre on Friday each had the same job: to make a young audience remember their old selves.

But Ice Cube and Chris Brown had very different reasons for doing so. Cube, the snarling N.W.A alum turned affable family comedy actor, has a new album, “I Am the West,” on which he attempts to reassert L.A.’s legacy in a hip-hop culture that has largely overlooked the city’s gangsta ethos in pursuit of trancey club pop.

Brown, on the other hand, had to convince his many teenage female fans that he’s still the winking, nimble-limbed crooner they adored before his ugly domestic-violence incident against then-girlfriend Rihanna.

Each unexpectedly succeeded, but their performances underlined the difficult and competing loyalties in today’s young L.A. hip-hop culture. Fans will forgive a beloved figure of pretty much anything, but that sometimes leaves an unsettling aftertaste to a great performance.

 
Cali Christmas works like a cafeteria line of rap music: The offerings are constantly revolving, and fans get only small bits from their favorite (or less favorite) artists.

The night’s early sets showcased a new and charismatic streak of wanton villainy on radio. The young L.A. group YG has one of KPWR’s biggest singles in “Toot It and Boot It,” a song so cackling and absurd in its dating-game misogyny — and so goofy in its delivery — that it’s hard even to be offended by anti-pickup lines like “I toot it and boot it and made her feel stupid.”

Waka Flocka Flame, the maniacally dreadlocked Atlantan (and protégé of Gucci Mane), doesn’t extend his raps too far beyond screaming his own name atop percussive gunshot noises. But he does it with an eagerness that eventually turns endearing. Surprise guests Too $hort and E-40 had a similar louche appeal on their track “Trick.”

Downtown’s own Far East Movement might be a better representation, for better or worse, of the current state of L.A. rap than Ice Cube. Asian American rappers and R&B singers are having a bit of a chart run lately, with the success of Filipino Puerto Rican Bruno Mars and the Black Eyed Peas’ Filipino American Apl.de.ap. But Far East Movement’s elastic, techno-derived singles such as “Girls on the Dancefloor” and “Like a G6” are meant straight for the hips, whether your lubricant is soju shots or a nice single-malt.

Rick Ross, the rotund Miami MC who most resembles an Easter Island statue — if they could grow beards and sport Stunna shades — has built a rap career while somehow managing to barely rap on his records. His clipped, brusque delivery on drug-slinging bangers like “B.M.F.” and “Hustlin” discards pretty much every rule of great MC-ing, but he somehow emerges with satisfying, swaggering tracks.

His fellow Miamian Pitbull is always a welcome guest at these festivals, as the Cuban American is one of few rappers to sport a genuine live band and a court jester appeal in the radio-rap pantheon. He delivered lascivious Spanish shout-outs to fellow Latinos while cutting rug to tracks like “I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)” and “Hotel Room Service” that have an authentic debt to the conga-inflected first waves of house music.

 


Co-headliner Brown remains in one of the most singularly complicated positions in music today. His 2009 Grammy-night beating of one of the most famous and beautiful women in music should by all rights have ended his R&B career. But onstage Friday he maintained a charm that felt unnervingly disarming. He is still the best dancer in pop music, locking into cyborg flinches on “Transform Ya” and a jittery, angular athleticism on “Kiss Kiss.” Brown and his six backup dancers made his sometimes mediocre songs into spectacles of physical daring and imagination.

He also has the most eerie and evocative song on Power 106 right now in “Deuces,” a viperous post-breakup cut as sleek as pooled mercury — and drawing from a pool of viciousness and self-regard almost unprecedented in R&B. That he can allow the line “Like Ike did Tina in the limo, it finally hit me” on Kevin McCall’s guest verse after the Rihanna incident borders on sociopathic. But be it from a pop Stockholm syndrome or his unerring suaveness onstage, the Gibson crowd remained his.

One wondered if Ice Cube could accomplish the same. While L.A. will always ride hard for the ’90s gangsta rap that defined the region, the West Coast has gotten better at Dre-era nostalgia than playing today’s rap game. And Cube’s acting career has lately cast him as a beleaguered suburban dad — who knew in 1992 that Cube’s biggest threat would come not from an LAPD squad car but a minivan of shrieking kids in 2005’s “Are We There Yet?”

But his Cali Christmas performance resurrected the emphatic West Coaster who terrified Tipper Gore while simultaneously lamenting rap’s turn to the south and Europe. “I Rep That West” felt refreshing in its g-funk orthodoxy, and anyone who can casually peel off “It Was a Good Day” mid-set will forever be a force in L.A. And he’s not above a little coastal skirmishing — “If Jay-Z can rap about the NYC, why can't I rap about the [stuff] I see without Alicia Keys, without going R&B?” — he growled on “Life in California.”

Few rappers can still make such a claim in L.A. But Cube has a permanent California license to do just that.

-- August Brown

Top photo: Ice Cube performs at Power 106 FM's Cali Christmas. Credit: Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times.

Middle photo: Pitbull. Credit: Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times.

Bottom photo: Chris Brown. Credit: Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times.

Comments

[Kayla]

Funny how you chose to highlight Chris' problems but looked the other way when it came down to the other performers who brag about killing, and selling drugs in their music. You wrote more on Chris' past than the actual performance which was outstanding and by far the best of that night.

[Tracie]

I saw video footage of Chris Brown's performance. It was AWESOME! I'm so bored of hearing about the "incident" between him and his ex every time I read about him. Let it go. It's been almost TWO years and the general public is BORED with hearing about it.

[ana]

it's actually "like TINA did IKE in the limo"
as in the WOMAN hitting the man, coz that NEVER happens.. :|

[almostpia]

(Forgive me, as I say his/her throughout this comment because I'm not sure of August Brown's gender.)

August Brown seems to be wearing his/her feelings on his/her sleeve. I understand that some individuals have issues moving on or accepting the reality that Chris Brown still has an audience who delights in his talents but he is here to stay as a fixture in the musical stratosphere, just as James Brown and Miles Davis are still staples of the American musical landscape in spite of their personal demons of substance abuse and domestic violence. What is particularly interesting is your comment that "he maintained a charm that felt unnervingly disarming". It seems as though you think someone's talent should just evaporate just because they have personal issues they are handling. Ever since Chris Brown started as a 15-16 year old in the musical industry, many people commented how great a performer he was and none of that has changed. He is a professional entertainer and that is what he does. Just like Bruno Mars was caught with grams of cocaine a few months ago in Las Vegas but he is still phenomenally gifted artist.

From what I saw posted on twitter, the Cali Christmas crowd ecstatically received Chris Brown and his performance; many even said he was the best performer of the night. I hope 21-year-old Chris Brown continues to mature artistically and as a person. Best of wishes!

[sunflower27828]

K-Mac's line does NOT say Like Ike did Tina....... It says "Like TINA did Ike".......That really makes a big difference in the interpretation of the song. K-Mac is speaking of finally waking up and having a "light bulb moment". I had to comment because saying Like Ike did Tina changes the whole concept of what "Deuces" is about. It isn't a viperous, venomous, malicious and treacherous type of song, It is the ultimate....I will NOT let you keep walking over me.....doing me any way you want to.... and I take it song. I've heard fans of music from Rock to Rap comment on how this song speaks directly to them. Please listen again to the lyrics. Yea, I am a fan....and I don't want the song misrepresented OR misinterpreted.

[melodies]

I have left a comment a day ago and I haven't seen it. I just want to repeat this was a very digusting thing you have done in highlighting Chris Brown two year ago incident that he is paying for through the courts. He hasn't been in any trouble since that incident he had with his ex-girlfriend. I know for a fact that she has been violent towards him I have family in VA. It was reported that cop came to Chris house in Va, after Rihanna bust Chris car windows and he didn't press charges on her and She hit him in the face at the Richmond Va airport where there were many witnesses. If you want to talk truth about Ms Fenton investigate that. By the way you should get your facts straight about the song Deuces "It's like Tina did Ike in the Limo finally hit me. Probably the same way Rihanna was hitting on Chris that famous night. She has a history violent outburst. In her 07 Complex mag interview she admitted busting her brother in the face with a bottle. Think before you try and Bring down a young man trying to pull his life back together. A true Fan of Chris Brown.