Meeting with the Masta

This past Friday I checked out hip-hop veteran Masta Ace's show at the Opera House in Toronto on his "final tour". Good to see the show was very well attended in a venue that can make a lot of people seem like no one is there. Highlights included Ace doing the Saukrates-produced "Top 10 List" and the Juice Crew trivia test, but there were also many more. What's interesting about Ace is that he seems to have much fans evenly split between his early and later career, which really doesn't happen much with hip-hop artists.

When I showed up to interview him the next day, Ace along with Punch & Words and honorary T-dot residents Frank n Dank and a bunch of others were cracking up to some video of some Jackass-style video of someone taking an absolutely humiliating header while trying to jump across the water in a fountain in a public park. Dude's ankle looked like it got turned out. Turns out the video was of Ace and his crew on tour in Germany and I think the unfortunate person may have been Wordworth, but I'm gonna have to check that out.

The interview itself went well and Ace gave me some insight onto how the West Coast sound of the track "Born To Roll" was released as East-West tensions were escalating basically disintegrated the INC Crew. Interesting.

Afterwards, went to go check Hotel Rwanda with Don Cheadle in the lead role. To be honest I'm still processing everything I saw in this intense film but it is definitely absolutely essential viewing and Cheadle and Sophie Okenodo definitely deserve the Oscar nods.

Couple of random things.
A Roots Manuva interview and session performance as "Awfully Deep" drops in the UK. It looks like a May timeframe for these shores given the just announced dates.

And really, what is up with Rafer Alston and the Raptors?
Hmm, just what Raptors fans need with Vince finally waking up in NJ.