Audio By Carbonatix
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| Pusha T of the Clipse playing to the crowd at Sneaker Pimps in Miami on Saturday. |
Click here to view the full slideshow from this event.
Sneaker PimpsLive Performances by the Cool Kids and ClipseSaturday, May 30, 2009The Moore Building, Miami
Better than: A backpack full of factory-fresh, limited edition kicks.
Outside the Moore Building, footwear fetishists of all kinds tip-toed past rain- and flyer-flooded gutters, queuing up at the corner of NE 2nd Ave. and 40th Street for the Miami edition of Sneaker Pimps. There were Lil Wayne wannabes, Asian hip-hop heads, and hardcore skate dudes à la Suicidal Tendencies. Somewhat surprisingly though, the waiting all-ages crowd also included a ton of female fan-types: Lil Mamas and Kid Sisters and a clutch of M.I.A. look-alikes.
Inside, the scene was a full-on youth marketing bumrush. The whole shoe exhibition thing (rare, vintage, and artist-modified Converse, Nike, PF Flyers, and Adidas behind Cuidado yellow tape) played like mere background. Instead, kids from five to 50 years old kept busy at the Xbox 360 gaming station or trawling the Sneaker Pimps table for branded New Era caps, tees, and bejeweled grills.
Shorties snatched free skull
stickers, Onitsuka Tiger toy keychains, and other sneaker-related swank
from the Tokidoki corner. And upstairs, the independent merch
shop–featuring Da Bottom Clothing, Superkix, Female Sneaker Fiend, etc.–was mobbed thicker than the black market.
At 10:12 p.m., after an extended warm-up set by Miami’s own DJ Keen One, opening act the Cool Kids
took the stage, flanked by a pair of flatscreens broadcasting a
Verizon-sponsored text stream of inane shit like “Luke knows kicks!
LOL!” and “Hi!” Needless to say, it took a few songs for the
Chicago-slash-Detroit duo to finally draw peeps from their shopping.
But once the crowd found the front of the stage, MCs Mikey Rocks and
Chuck Inglish tag-teamed the room with a 45-minute set of their
retro-style rap faves, including “Gold Links” and “Popcorn.” Before
they left, sing-alongs started, hand-signs were tossed, and spliffs got
sparked.
Then picking up a half-hour before midnight, Virginian heavyweights and headliners the Clipse
came full-force with the true street package. As always, brothers (the
genetic kind) Malice and Pusha T brought vicious flow, fast brutal
beats, and thugged-out gangsta tales to the fore. Manically stalking
the stage, they criss-crossed left to right and back between verses,
plugging the air with mimicked glock-blasts and hyping the crowd with
overtures to the 305. Their set sampled widely from 2002’s Lord Willin’ and 2006’s Hell Hath No Fury while giving a few glimpses of their long-brewing, upcoming release Till the Casket Drops. Added to that, there was a walk-on appearance from Philly-based rapper and Re-Up Gang member Ab-Liva and the parting words: “It’s curfew!”
Critic’s Notebook
Personal Bias: Vans authentics and street-shredded Converse.
Random Detail:
Seconds after changing his shoes, some wasted teen took a wide-stance
curbside, poked his pecker past the fly, and dribbled urine all over
his brand-new, white Nikes.
By the Way: Piss on your kicks? Fat Joe’s got the solution.
