Summer Jamrock

June 06, 2005


We piled in the whip last night and bolted down to NJ for Hot 97's Summer Jam. Real real fun. We're predicting most of today's other media wrap-ups will focus on Kanye bringing out the Greatest Rapper Alive to get the zillions of white-teed Giants Stadium concertgoers throwing diamonds up and shouting along to "P.S.A.", or maybe they'll stick to to mentioning all the the Game's "G-U-NOT!" shouts and blatant truce-breaking antics. Both moments were extra entertaining, but as far as we were concerned, some of the bestest highlights came from dancehall cameos. MORE FIRE!




Parking lot drama meant missing out on most of the Dipset and D-Block performances, both scheduled puzzlingly early in the show. As frustrating as it was to get text messages of "PAUL WALL DIPSET AAAAAHHHH!" while walking to the gate instead of actually witnessing the People's Champ onstage ourselves, we did make it to our mezzanine seats in time to check Sizzla getting brought out by D-Block to perform his "Solid As A Rock" over Bonecrusher's ATL anthem "Never Scared", turning what once existed only as a dubplate DJ blend into a stadium-rattling performance.

The Jamaica/Dirty South connection would be revisited once again during Lil Jon's set; after bringing Ice Cube out for "Real Nigga Roll Call" (and a gangster-as-shit solo Cube performance of "Check Yo Self" which almost made us forget Are We There Yet?), Jon stopped the show, announced that there'd be one more surprise before he left, then grabbed Damian Marley to do "Welcome To Jamrock". Suffice it to say, we lost our shit.

You can check some pics here, but we're waiting to peep the snappy snaps from our dude Nocito, who was on assignment for another mag with a full-access photo pass and kept texting us stuff like "GOING ON STAGE - RED FLANNEL" throughout the night. Lucky guy.

Posted: June 06, 2005
Summer Jamrock