Fresh to NYC, Matt Steiner heads to over the bridge and cuts his teeth on Brooklyn’s Hip Hop Festival. Despite the rain, the concert rocked.

Running hella late, and getting more and more soaked by the rain as I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, I could already hear the sounds of gritty New York Hip Hop resonating from Empire Fulton Ferry State Park. I met up with a fellow MCee, Young Youth, and we finally arrived on the scene. Not even the rain was going to stop Brooklyn’s biggest celebration of Hip Hop.

As soon as we got under the tent Uncle Ralph, the MC of the 5th annual Brooklyn Hip Hop festival, announced a special guest to the stage. It was none other than Black Thought of the legendary Roots crew. He stepped up and rocked “The Next Movement” from the Things Fall Apart album. Not a bad start to my day. Black Thought’s stay was short with only one more track, but he would be back later on.

We said goodbye to J Period and Grand Puba whose entire set I missed. (Damn local trains on the weekend!) DJ Premier, producer and DJ for the pioneer rap group – Gangstarr, took a while to find his way to the stage so DJ Parler entertained the restless youth with some Brooklyn Mcees. The most notable sing along was by far “Juicy” by Notorious BIG with Jay-Z’s “Takeover” coming in a close second. At this point I looked around and was impressed with the blend of ethnicity in the crowd. It’s 2009 and we’ve come a long way people!

Premo finally gets up and takes the crowd on an old school to new school trip of some of his more notable productions. “Work”,“Above the Clouds” and “Nas is Like” come to mind. I was feeling jaded about shouting back when anybody said, “Brooklyn how you feelin’?” but then Premier said, “No matter where your from, today your from Brooklyn!” spotting himself, a Texan, as an example. With a new feeling of my Brooklyn roots taking hold I loosened up and let Premo do the rest. However, without Guru to bless the mic, his act kind of got lost in the mix. A lot of yelling and fixing his mic, but never the less, one of the greats in the game, doing what he does best.

Politics was also in the building. Marty Markowitz, president of the Brooklyn Borough, came by to proclaim the day national Brooklyn Hip Hop festival day in the Republic of Brooklyn. Great! Now its official, because before it was just another festival, right? Marty got off the stage just in time, because controversial and the highly politically charged Dead Prez was waiting in the wing. As Uncle Ralph said while Markowitz walked off stage, “Marty get far away from here. Dead Prez is next and you don’t want no part of that!”

DJ Green Lantern was handed the mic and he explained how he dragged M-1 and Stic.man into the studio to make Pulse of the People, since they hadn’t dropped anything new since 2006’s Can’t Sell Dope Forever. The result – the same in-your-face black power vibe that we’ve come to expect. They began with “NY dp” to a heroes’ welcome. Lyrics like, “Even though Obama in/ Uncle Sam still ain’t my friend,” let you know exactly what’s on their mind.

With all heads rockin’, M-1 proceeds to tell of their run in with the “punk-ass police” on the way over to the show. A fitting story for between songs, don’t you think? Next was “Summer Time” which left the politics aside to get back to the party and bar-b-que because you know leading political revolutions is mad stressful. The joint that set the whole place off though was the one that put them on the map – “Hip Hop.” The energy level immediately tripled under the tent.

By this point all the random guests and politicians had run over so Stylez P of the mighty Lox and D-Block crew got thrown up on stage in a whirlwind of about 50 other dudes with mics. Which one was Stylez? He mainly stuck to his hits and did “Locked Up”, “Good Times (I Get High)” and an old Lox classic “Wild Out.” The crowd didn’t seem to mind, they were feeling it hard. He ended with Jadakiss’s “We Gonna Make It” at which point my boy Young Youth turns to me and claims that Method Man is about 10 feet away in the crowd going buck wild! I never could see if Tical was in the building or not, because it was so crowded. There goes my chance to be the first red-headed Wu member!

With 20 minutes to go, Pharoahe Monch rolls up on stage looking like Lenny Kravitz! I swear he had the same afro and a tight rock ‘n’ roll tee on. Never the less he stole the show! Armed with two soulful background singers and DJ Rob Swift from the X-ecutioners, Pharoahe brought a more soulful yet grimey approach to the mic. Following “Oh No” some lady came up on stage and claimed the show was over but the crowd would have taken her head, so she backed up and let Pharoahe do one more – “Simon Says.” The crowd exploded!!! Swear the dude in front of me was going into convulsions!

All in all a really dope show. A lot of great New York MCees bringing some light to an overcast rainy afternoon. I feel bad I missed Grand Puba and all the cats before him but what I did see had my head ringing and my kneck rockin’! I’ll definitely be back next year for more of Brooklyn’s finest hour in Hip Hop.