Curren$y, Method Man - Music Box - 11/5/11

Timothy Norris

Curren$y

See also: Our Curren$y and Method Man slideshow

Curren$y, Method Man, Smoke DZA, Fiend, Corner Boy P
Music Box
11/5/11

Better than ... hanging with Curren$y at his crib. Oh, wait.

The average person would use a broken ankle as a reason to relax and take a little time off, especially if said person had succeeded Devin the Dude as the new underground face of 4:20 counterculture.

Not Curren$y.

At the San Bernardino date of Rock the Bells in late August, the New Orleans "Hot Spitta" snapped his ankle while hopping offstage for his usual post-performance meet-n-greet. Though he missed the San Francisco stop of the tour, he dropped a mixtape three days after the incident and in mid-October, set out -- cast, crutches, and all -- on round two of last year's successful Smoker's Club Tour. If you were under the impression that potheads are lazy, the prolific and perennially on-the-road Spitta has proven to be the exception to that rule.

Timothy Norris

Curren$y and Smoke DZA

Instead of just the J.E.T.S. (Curren$y and friends' tagline is a hip-hop translation of "carpe diem"--"Just Enjoy This Shit") this trip, the tour added Method Man to its roster. Smart match on the part of some marketing department: The crowd was split about 70/30 in favor of Spitta, but Meth got a chance to win a new audience, and old 'heads stuck around to see who nabbed the headliner spot. Nobody lost.

The pairing seems a little curious musically. Curren$y tends toward nostalgic soundscapes and lyrics that weave pop culture references into raps about "weed jars and race cars." Method Man's beats are foreboding beasts, and his voice, husky and burned from blunts and 40s, barks lyrics that could only come from growing up on the defensive in New York. But the two share the ideology that hip hop should be fun.

Meth practiced what he preaches. Before he even appeared, the audience had thrown up the Wu-Tang Clan's "W," and when he swung into "M.E.T.H.O.D. Man," the floor became a trampoline. He was a ball of tense, tightly coiled energy, whether slinging a bottle of water onto the audience, dancing ("I ain't afraid to shake my ass," he laughed) or falling back into the crowd's arms like a trust game. Plain and simple, it's exhilarating to watch even one member of the Wu onstage.

In fact, though we knew under normal circumstances Spitta's set could equal the energy of Meth's, we wondered how he would fare not being able to stand. Would he just sit there?