Big Daddy Kane celebrates 20 years of hip-hop stardom
By Robert Spuhler
Special to amNewYork
•Big Daddy Kane is at B.B. King Blues Club on Friday. 8pm, $30.
Tired of the same five producers recording every song on hip-hop radio? Tired of rappers with the same flows talking about the same topics?
Big Daddy Kane feels your pain.
“Now, if you go out and buy five hip-hop albums, all the music sounds the same,” he says. “They’re talking about the same thing, you’re going to hear a handclap beat, some of that Auto-Tune singing. It’s all the same.”
This Friday night at B.B. King Blues Club, Kane takes the stage to celebrate the 2oth anniversary of the release of “Long Live the Kane,” his groundbreaking debut album which contained, among other standout tracks, the classic “Ain’t No Half-Steppin.’ ”
But while the night will be in celebration of that seminal work, Kane guarantees that it will also be a celebration of hip-hop.
“We’re going to have a whole lot of surprise guests, a lot of people coming to bless the stage and perform,” he says. “And I’m going to do some things on stage that people aren’t used to seeing me do.”
Kane is one of the originals, your favorite emcee’s favorite emcee. His career, his time with the Juice Crew and the battles he participated in are all legendary. But even as his output has waned (his last album was released in 1998), Kane’s name remains revered, even by new hip-hop fans.
“There’s a younger generation that get connected to certain older music and because they don’t like the state of hip-hop today. I’m so used to people coming up to me and saying, ‘my father used to always listen to you’ or ‘my older brother turned me on to you.’ Now I hear a lot of people saying, ‘I downloaded some of your old stuff and it’s really cool.’ ”
Along with his lyrical prowess, Kane was also known as one of hip-hop’s first true sex symbols, a title he says is best achieved by being different. That’s something that few today try to do.
“And it’s not hard,” he insists. “Notorious B.I.G. or Mick Jagger. Ugly m-------------, but sexy to their public.”
