The reason why good artists have long careers is because they know how to be constantly evolving and gather new fans as the years go by.  On the flipside, the fans all have a different recollection of when we first came in contact with these musicians.

For me, songs like What's Going On, Laughin' and Say Yes Say Word brings me back to when I was a young teenager eagerly exploring the underground hip hop scene.  Thanks to albums like Roxbury 02119 and Sittin' On Chrome, Hip Hop came in to my life and decided to stay.

By now you probably know who I am talking about and hopefully it made you go back and think of what songs that brought your attention to these artists.  Personally, I gave up hope years ago of seeing these dope rappers perform live in a town near by.  But my wish came true on a blistering cold and snowy December night.

It has been about two months since Masta Ace & Edo. G dropped their album Arts & Entertainment and Stockholm Sweden was happy to be a part of their European tour.

Unfortunately, the evening was off to a slow start, and it was hard to tell if the audience were hyped or not since there was no DJ in sight to warm us up with some nice and classic hip hop beats.  This might explain why Akrobatik's first minutes on stage as an opening act didn't come off as raw as anticipated.

I love Akro but it seemed like most of the people were there to see the main act.  Akrobatik did however impress some of us in the audience with his confidence and eagerness to shine on stage.  Ak told his hype-man Paten Locke to pitch up the beat while he got our attention by throwing speedy rhymes turning his face red as a tomato.  With hits like Internet Mc's and Remind My Soul, and of course, A to the K, he made an over-all good performance.

But now to the main act.  The atmosphere, the feeling and everything in the place changed when Masta Ace & Edo.G walked on stage.  The fact that these guys has been around for a while became quite obvious.  Both of them immediately took control, and it was interesting to see how well they were working together on stage.  These real masters of ceremony were hitting us with tracks from the new album and got the place rockin' to classics from the past like Love Comes And Goes, Sayin' Somethin' & Return Of The Crooklyn Dodgers.

Seeing them together, I was like, "Wow, two of the greatest rappers teaming up, this is going to be huge!" and it also made me think about how team-ups are becoming more and more common again. Moments later, Ace & Edo gave me the answer with a smart and funny tribute medley dedicated to all twos in the game.  They started out with the tunes of the classic soul track "Just The Two Of Us" to seconds later flipping over to EPMD's "You Gotz To Chill" rapping "...and get down to the sounds of A's & E's, then quickly back on to "Just The Two Of Us" and into the next track with famous groups with two rappers such as Das EFX, Mobb Deep and Run-DMC.  That kept the entire spot entertained for a long while.

If I was posed the question, "Which ingredients do you have to have to make a good hip hop show?" my response would be:

Crowd control, a balanced repetoar, funny and hype chats between tracks, good mic levels, a lot of hits, surprises and a whole lot of energy.

The legendary and still going strong emcees Mr. Ace and Mr. Edo really cooked up a little 'sumthin sumthin' of every ingredient, bringing both Art and Entertainment to Stockholm that night.


- Eleidee for HIPHOPGODS.com