Erykah Badu

Erykah Badu, Rock the bells last year, the touring hip-hop boom, reflected in the festival concept in vogue in which the artist makes an old record from start to finish. It went well, and this year bought twice. On Saturday on Governors Island, in the midst of other sets, more common, there were 11 albums in their entirety.

What is a binge! What commitment! That seemed to weigh on the crowd. This meant that listeners were not in the here and now, which could be Fratty, selfish or mean. They were deep in the state and gone. It was not just listen to the beating, or sustained works of art, but to her own past. The exercise cooled out. Saturday’s audience was really mixed, with strong representation of New Yorkers 30 to 45 age group, adults in their prime new casual and polite. Many of them high, but still.

All but one of the albums re-issued on Saturday came from 1993 to 1998, the era of the Wu-Tang Clan, neo soul, and pre-post-gangsta, vendors nerdery platinum rap: Nas’ Illmatic “Lauryn Hill” Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, “Erykah Badu” Baduizm “Black Moon” Enta Da Stage “Mobb Deep” Infamous, “GZA” Liquid Swords “, Cypress Hill” Black Sunday “, Killa Priest” Heavy Mental, “Mos Def and Talib Kweli on” Black Star “, Raekwon is.” solely for Cuban Linx “(The outlier was the” Date not say, “by Wu-Tang rapper Masta Killa, from 2004, a delight for lovers of hip-hop, recently reviewed in the hip-hop blogs for its use of Otis Redding “Try a Little Tenderness”, years before Jay-Z and Kanye West did the same in “Otis.” ) Other joint nonalbum came from a history or interest in underground rap: Freddie Gibbs, Blu, and Immortal Technique.

Ms. Badu aced the allocation of additional credits. She never made the trip through an achievement-old feel like a slog. His set was a joke long and relaxed, full of farewells tested and jams that results in experiments with funk, very well controlled. The songs on “Baduizm” were quite fluid in its original state, and did more. “Another side of the game” in the middle of the album, became a cloud of funk to stop in time and groans of the soul. Later, the depths of her game, she hit the first verse of Ice Cube from NWA “Gangsta Gangsta”, he remembers two things about the song: it was fun, and it was seductive.

Lauryn Hill, making her album so it was reported that the first time, it radiates almost the contrary. She gave the album a new strain, tempos and lime increased urgency. As he sang and played, she had a vague gesture and suddenly the musicians behind her to leave half of a bar or play harder or softer. Only occasionally was called the suggestion and compliment because most of all the music functions as a hub. Eventually Pras, her old band mate of the Fugees, who performed with her briefly in “Ready or not,” joined him and five of her six children, was in a neat row on the right.

Black Moon, directed by the rapper shot, played most of her set with a backing band, like the saxophonists that mimic the signs of staining. It was a move both ways. A group of competent musicians live, as they were, can make sound hip-hop anonymous, like these. But all felt different for a day when the hours of shouting and banging sounds similar backing tracks – midtempo beats with a distressed finish – can make you feel distracted.

Perhaps the artists and engineers felt the same. Within the sets of the members of Wu-Tang – with a full stage, one of the festival four, designated “36 chambers” after the title of the band’s first record – you got what you came for: the grimy mid the 90 beats, as well as broken tag team rap, shot sampled signal abrupt end of the songs. During the making of Raekwon’s “only for Cuban Linx”, Ghostface Killah – rapper contained in most of its tracks – had had enough. It took a timeout and ordered a thorough review midset sound, “Give me 800 Hertz, means a little more and some high. Hey, hurry up. Not much time. Come on, get us more. One, two. One, two . “engineers set. “It’s coming.” He waited. “It’s coming.”

Raekwon breaking silence, said: “I, Spirit. You want a sandwich, man?”

Nas, who closed the night on the main stage, got through his 17 year old album with patience and pedantic. The set went back and forth in the sequence of track on the disc, with guests, a constant back and forth between it and DJ Premier, producer of some of the songs and the MC for his stage show. The beatings, roomy and bet on the best sound of the night were fabulous.

He took Pete Rock, one of its producers and MC Serch, who originally had connected a recording contract with Columbia, acknowledged Faith Newman, an original A & R representative on the label. And he performed “live at the barbecue,” the song of 1991, which marked his first appearance on record, as a teenager, with Primary Source. (Other rappers on the track, Joe Fatal and Akinyele, also came, and Large Professor, the member of Queens of origin of the primary source.) As Nas hit her introductory verse boast – “Stampede the stage, I’m division of the microphone “- was a time warp back to a time of naivete, or maybe just a focused one, when his main goal is not autobiography, allegory and social criticism, but his own ability.