God bless Jazz Fest

by MORGAN STEIKER

Ka-pow! You gotta let your backbone slide at le Belmont tonight with none other than Maestro (Fresh Wes, for the old school) as he’s celebrating the 20th anniversary of his ’89 debut LP, Symphony in Effect, which remains the best selling hip hop album in Canadian history. Big up to Maestro for dustin’ off the mic and playing the classics one more time.

Also tonight, as part of the Jazz Fest, Kevin Martin, the face behind the mask known as the Bug, and formerly known as God, Techno Animal and Ice, will be serving Club Soda some electro-dancehall rhythms with the help of grime MC Flowdan of the U.K.’s notorious Roll Deep Crew, as well as legendary creator of ragamuffin hip hop, Daddy Freddy.

Friday night, we got Montreal’s top hip hop act (voted by you, readers), Nomadic Massive, populating the Jazz Fest’s Bell stage at 10 p.m. and dispensing good vibes all over downtown Montreal. Congrats to them for maintaining elevation. Meanwhile, we got the Obscene Kidz, Arvida Crew and Real Talk live at Sherbrooke’s Telephone Rouge, and Omega performing their debut album at Underworld.

Saturday night, Mark Ronson’s draft pick Wale, a D.C. rapper schlepping a big buzz, will be on the Bell stage at 10 p.m. to show us if all the talk is worth the spit. I hope and expect to see a go-go band, my dude. Later that night, jerk-ity duo Thunderheist will invade Club Soda for a live performance as well as a DJ set. Expect a long, sweaty night of heavy dancing, ladies.

For all the Jazzfestian readers, I might add a little Estelle, the sweetest voice to come out of ’08, at Metropolis on Monday night, and the not-to-be-missed-for-any-I-repeat-any-reason Rocksteady: The Roots of Reggae night featuring a dream team of the last remaining pioneers of reggae playing, singing and presenting a documentary by the same name that will be running at the Musée d’art contemporain from July 4–12.

STOP THAT TRAIN, I’M LEAVING… DABEATSEEKER@GMAIL.COM