There were a few opening hip-hop acts, but none of them really left much of an impression on me so I really don't have much to say in regards to that. Mista Lawnge from Black Sheep was the host of the show and I was really hoping to meet him after the show and ask him this bullshit sample question, but alas, it just didn't happen like that. We again smuggled our own alcohol and saved a few bucks at the bar which was unsurprisingly over-priced. After a few hours and several bootlegged cocktails later, Kid Capri finally took the stage and did his typical but nonetheless impressive scratch routine with lots of old school record drops and crowd movers. Without much of an introduction, Rakim took to the stage and opened with My Melody and it was certainly a powerful moment. He was fucking fantastic and that's putting it mildly. He did almost everything from the Paid In Full album (which is one of the ten best albums ever made) and he even did Know The Ledge from the Juice soundtrack. Fat Joe and some of the cats from Terror Squad were there including DJ Khaled and that was sorta cool I guess. All and all, it was a bad-ass performance that I feel very fortunate to have seen. I mean seriously, I would have never thought that I would have ever seen the mighty Rakim Allah perform in the flesh, but dammit, I did. After the show, we stumbled around downtown and shot some ridiculous random video and then headed back home. As you probably figured, I took lots of pics and here are a few for your visual amusement...