“How many motherfuckers love Obie Trice?” yells Detroit’s latest Sultan of Bling, as he struts across the stage at Dublin’s Ambassador. Not that he’s low on self confidence – the 26-year-old rapper signed to Eminem’s Shady Records imprint in 2001, and for his 2003 debut album Cheers, enlisted the collaborative skills of hip hop heavyweights Dr Dre, Busta Rhymes, Nate Dogg, D-12 and G Unit, as well as Mr Mathers himself (talk about bringing out the big guns), in the process cementing his position as the successor to the gangsta rap throne.
Tonight’s show, in support of said album, boasts surprisingly little in the way of superstar stylings. There are no bootylicious dancers in skimpy spandex and no flashy stage décor. Instead we see Obie, his dreadlocked DJ and no less than three supporting MCs, two of whom spend most of the short 50-minute set standing either side of the decks throwing shapes – a grand total of four, I think, in rotation.
Obie launches into a slew of sparse, gravelly hip-hop tunes, including the current single ‘Got Some Teeth’ with its wonky beats, album favourite ‘Cheers’, the Eminem-guested ‘Hands On You’ and the soon to be released ‘Don’t Come Down’. However, his all too frequent reliance on crowd interaction (namely, getting the crowd to shout ‘Yee-ah’ and bounce their hands up and down while the DJ scratches up the backing track) before, during and after songs soon becomes increasingly tiresome.
As well, the fact that Eminem et al were with us only in spirit-and-vinyl takes the edge off the lyrical interplay while bad sound dogs the sparkling production, leaving the beats behind the rhymes somewhat monotonous. If this is the genre’s next gangstar, hip-hop has reason to be fearful.