Do that sh!t.

"Do that shit, do that shit... now, do it!"

The MC chants the familiar call, while the crowd rises to echo the request. It's hip-hop at it's honest roots. The call-response that echoes the history of hip-hop itself. And it's a staple of a hip-hop show.

Now Jimbo loves his P.E. and Devo busts a pretty mean b-boy stance, but I'm pretty much the Lodge's resident hip-hop head when it comes to realm of hip-hop. And I'm okay with that. So I'd like to recap a few hip-hop shows I recently attended, and drop some Lodge k-nowledge (and if you didn't get that Beastie Boys reference, you need to listen harder).

Saturday night, the wife and I (Jenny is a bigger hip-hop head than I am, who even watches B.E.T. on occasion) caught a Cancer Rising show at The Crocodile Cafe. The Croc always bring it for local acts, and this was no exception. Cancer Rising was sandwiched between 2 indie-rock bands, but they still brought it and even made some of the indie-kids bob their heads a little.

We went mainly because our friend Larry Mizell, aka Gatsby, aka "that guy who writes for the weekly", is the backbone of Cancer Rising. Larry brought the hip, threw in a little hop, and the DJ brought the funk. Good times.

Local hip-hop has definitely rose to a new level in recent years and gained respect on the West Coast and national scene. Devo's cousin helps promote Seattle's own Blue Scholars, who scored nationally with Blink, a politically charged song about (among other things) the war in Iraq (a performance of the song was included on KEXP's 1st live in-studio release. And congratulations are in order to Seattle's DJ B Mello (who spins for KEXP), who was awarded "West Coast DJ of the Year," at the 9th Annual Power Summit Conference in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic last month.

On the national scale... a few weeks back, my old roommate Gabe got me in to a Talib Kweli show at The Showbox. For those who don't know... in my opinion, the Showbox is the best place to see a show in Seattle, hands down. Now, besides the fact that Talib let his 5 ft friend from Brooklyn take up 20+ minutes of his set, the show was on point and Talib definitely brought it. You might have heard of Talib Kweli from his last record, Quality, which boasted the classic cut Get By (on my Top 5 Best Hip-Hop Songs Of This Century "So Far" List), produced by Kanye West. But you should check out Talib's collaboration with Mos Def on Blackstar. If you like hip-hop at all, you owe it to yourself to listen to this record.