Southern Sojourn Day 4: The Big Easy

The House of Blues was Spitta’s showroom last night and right at home did he feel in the New Orleans branch of the venue chain. He inspired the crowd to keep blowing clouds into the air, he took to the floor double fisting bottles of champagne and giving out pounds, pausing to take pictures with the flyer sex. While the energy level was sufficiently blunted, it was clear that this is Currensy’s home and he is more than welcome here.

I took off from Birmingham early enough to go the long route which means cruising through Montgomery, Mobile and along the Gulf Coast. This was awesome for most of the way but as I approached Mobile I was caught in a full on Gulf storm filled with bolts of lightening close enough you might begin to question the statistics of how often one gets struck. And the rain? Let me tell you Seattle we don’t know shit about this. Damn. Blinding it comes down with so much force you can’t help but travel at a crawl on the freeway.

I stopped at a gas station to take stock of the storm and wrap my mind around what was going on around me. The attendant was quick to laugh at my baffled self, and then informed me I was most likely in store for this all the way to the Cresecent city. Great.

Luckily as I was reaching Biloxi I could see clouds that weren’t so dark and even slivers of the blue sky hidden away up there. I grabbed a sandwich and breathed a sigh of relief having made it through the nonsense weather and hopped for it to hold as I continued south.

I arrived in New Orleans about four in the afternoon, dropped off the whip and checked into the hotel before hitting the streets. Josh from K.L.U.B. Monsta had recommended I hit up Deanie’s while in town, and it happened to be directly across the street from where I was spending the night. Perfect.

I found my way to Bourbon street, just to survey the scene, before rolling to grab my ticket for Spitta later in the evening. I was feeling exhausted which was remedied with a quick nap and then a catfish Po Boy. It was at this point that I learned a valuable lesson about New Orleans: You can leave a bar with a drink in a “to go” cup roam the streets and bring said drink into a new venue. Add to this the ability of a bar to stay open and serve 24/7 and the party reputation this city has begins to crystallize.

A suggestion from my bartender to walk Bourbon all the way to Frenchman Street was heeded and off I went. Of course you can’t make it to far in this town without hearing something funky and almost instantly I heard the sounds of “Superstitious” coming out of a bar. I took a seat and a couple shots, stayed for a Rick James cover before making moves. Reminding me of the vibe found on Sixth Street in Austin during SXSW, you won’t struggle to find ladies to talk to, drinks to consume or food to eat. The music is a given in this city.

My last stop before it was time to catch Currensy was for some Absinthe. Having never had it before and yet heard so much I figured this was a good a place as any to be introduced to the formerly illegal drink. It got the job done and it was time to step into the House of Blues.

EF Cuttin was on the tables dropping cuts, crossing lines from current hits of both the radio and the blogs, to some classic NOLA type jams from the stables such as Cash Money and No Limit. Screams were heard and sets shown when Soulja Slim was dropped. At some point Currensy emerged on stage burning and holding his champagne, just talking to his hometown.

About midnight he hit the stage for real, with Monsta Beatz as hype men he ran through a few old mixtape jams the duo produced, before moving on to the Pilot Talk series. He was full of jokes, referring to his set as Pandora radio, “we can skip it if y’all ain’t fucking with it.” Of course no one wanted him to pass any jams.

He invited the Jet’s to join him from Nesby Phips to Trade and Roddy, trading bars and performing an assortment of the songs they have together. He brought Fiend out and after they performed a Flying Iron cut Fiend asked if he could get a song to which Currensy responded “You a legend Fiend, you done built the city. Can you get a song? Why you asking me, do a song man!”

In what had to be the surprise of the night for me, Currensy took a break from his night to bring out the young buck of the town LG. “I was on tour and missed the show, I had to see what you were working with.” He only got two tracks, the first of which he didn’t have an instrumental for but I was willing to overlook that fact given the obvious vigor with which he was still delivering his bars. He took off after his current single “Synth Sounds.” I’m not mad at this kid being the next member of the Jet Life Team.

From there Spitta kept it moving, performing a few more tunes, touching that Covert Coupe and more off Pilot Talk, and then he let his DJ spin most of The Stoned Immaculate while he threw free swag out into the crowd, a box of Tee’s and packs of Raw filters. I hung around hoping that the set wasn’t going to end after forty five minutes but then they cut the music and turned the house lights. An abrupt end to an amazing set.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 5th, 2012 at 2:39 pm. It is filed under Blog and tagged with Currensy, Fiend, Jet Life, LG, Nesby Phips, New Orleans, Southern Hiphop, Southern Sojourn, Trademark, Young Roddy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.