Posted by 
photo by Rob Bennett for The New York Times
Hip-hop gets odd treatment at festivals like All Points West, where most of the lineup leans toward indie-rock. The rock acts, beyond the name-brand headliners, are current: darlings of the club and college circuit and the blogs that support it. But the hip-hop is retro: representatives of past eras alongside younger acts who have chosen old-school styles.
Jay-Z, Friday’s headliner at All Points West, has been active since the 1990s and still rules current hip-hop. But he was a replacement for the Beastie Boys, who made their impact in the 1980s with “License to Ill and “Paul’s Boutique.” The festival’s other hip-hop came from dissolved and reunited 1990s groups — Organized Konfusion, the Pharcyde — and from Kool Keith, who was with the Ultramagnetic MC’s in the 1980s and has maintained an eccentric solo career since the mid-1990s. There were also younger rappers who hark back to the 1980s: the Cool Kids, who are content to emulate the simple cadences of Run-D.M.C. and the Beastie Boys.
photo by Chad Batka for The New York Times
Jay-Z opened his set with a gracious and savvy gesture. Friday was New York City day at All Points West, and Jay-Z was the last-minute replacement for another long-running New York hip-hop act: the Beastie Boys, whose rapper Adam Yauch (a k a MCA) needed an operation to remove cancer from a salivary gland. (Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, who preceded Jay-Z on the festival’s main stage, wore an armband that read, “Get well MCA.”)
Jay-Z now leads a full band, and he started on Friday night with a blast of power chords, but they turned out to be the riff from the Beasties’ “No Sleep Till Brooklyn.” Then Jay-Z proceeded to rap Mr. Yauch’s verses of the song — which gave him a good lead-in to his own “Brooklyn (Go Hard).” [A reader draws our attention to this video below of his performance.] Read more…
