Larry June with Melodownz & Monroe Flow – The Studio: November 21, 2023

San Francisco’s Larry June landed in Auckland and put on a show at The Studio. Our man Jeff Neems was there along with photographer Hugo Coleman. Here’s what they have for you:

In an internet-famous meme which does the rounds on social media, The Simpsons character Principal Skinner has a pensive look on his face, and asks “Am I out of touch? No, it’s the kids who are wrong!”.

Having joined The 13th Floor writing team late last year, I’ve become the site’s default rap music reviewer, having covered a quintet of hip hop shows in 2023 – Denzel Curry, Loyle Carner, Earl Sweatshirt, Home Brew and now San Francisco’s Larry June.

I put my figurative hand up to cover this show because, well, no-one else in the team was likely to be interested.

It seemed a good way to spend a Tuesday evening, and offered a chance to continue my courageous effort to find contemporary hip hop music I like, or can at least relate to. That was a struggle with the shouty and sweary Denzel Curry, and the almost dreary Earl Sweatshirt, although on a much brighter note, kiwi crowd Home Brew (with a full live band) was excellent and British rapper Loyle Carner (with a smaller but equally brilliant group of musicians) was truly exceptional and a highlight of the year.

Back to the Principal Skinner meme. I’m old enough to remember the emergence of the Native Tongues movement, the first couple of Public Enemy albums, and the overwhelming buzz when Wu Tang Clan first came on the scene. I’ve seen some of the great MCs perform – KRS-ONE (twice), Nas (twice), Common (twice), De La Soul (twice), Jurassic 5 (twice) The Roots (twice) and was even fortunate to catch the now-deceased Guru (as part of Gangstarr) and the truly gifted MF DOOM. The God MC, Rakim, is the last one on my list I really want to see.

So, as I advance past 50 years old, I strive to stay in touch with modern rap music, desperate to find the same feeling that switched me on to this at-times deeply engaging urban and ghetto music as when I was a wide-eyed high school kid tuning into Radio With Pictures and laughing at 2 Live Crew. When Larry June was born in 1991, I was already buying records by A Tribe Called Quest, 3rd Bass and RUN-DMC.

Hence, Larry June got a chance to impress me on – as he constantly reminded the crowd at The Studio – his first visit to New Zealand.

Disclaimer: I couldn’t name a Larry June song before wandering into the venue to see what he had to offer. A quick look at his discography shows an impressive list of solo albums, mix tapes and collaborations, which gave Larry a massive swag of material to choose his set from.

And, even as someone totally uninitiated with his work and career, it appeared that’s exactly what he did.

Over the course of an hour, Larry – blessed with a bassy and strong voice – wandered back and forth on stage, rattling off what seemed to be a diverse range of tunes from his lengthy catalogue, which dates back to 2010.

It must be said, the crowd loved it. There was lots of rapping along with Larry, the usual call-and-response stuff, and lyrical content which exemplifies the West Coast sound – booze, women, sexual antics, a bit of weed here and there, rolling in the convertible, and the hustle on the street to make money through vaguely defined means.

The fans, most of them barely older than Larry himself, thought it was great, as they blazed up their herb, raced back and forth to the bar to get their drinks, occasionally gave him the single-finger salute, and generally had a bloody good time. Although not quite as hyped as the audiences for Denzel or Earl, Larry’s fans were certainly delighted to see him and lapped it up like they’d been waiting for it for years.

All well and good. They probably had been waiting for his arrival on these shores.

The problem for us old hip hop heads is we’ve kinda been here before – and a long time ago at that.

Larry’s style reminded me of Ice Cube and NWA, at times got g-funkish like Dre and Snoop Dogg, and after a while it all became pretty samey. The tempo never changed. Some of the beats sounded near identical. Larry strolled back and forth along the front of the stage, high-fiving fans, grabbing the odd punter’s phone to take a pic of himself, and stopping to yell into the mic with his vocal trademark “eh, eh, eh, eh, eh”. He littered his between-song banter with a few song titles, a few swear words, and then just sort of carried on.

Ultimately, it all got a bit boring and meandered along with very little oomph and at times very little effort. There were moments when it appeared Larry couldn’t be bothered properly rapping the song, instead content to let the crowd do it for him, or just utter a few words of a rap before tapering off. There may even have been a song in which he didn’t really rap at all, just sort of blurted out a few phrases before apparently becoming bored with it himself and moving on to the next one, to more or less do the same thing again. No references to the wider hip hop culture, no political or social statements, no detailed personal accounts of what the songs meant to him, or what led to their creation. Just, well, songs, and sometimes only bits of them.

There were a couple of interesting aspects which caught my attention. Larry performed the whole show while wearing what looked like an expensive woman’s handbag on his back, and for much of his set we could barely see his face, due to the lighting. And secondly, he ended up with a couple of unannounced guests on stage – a young white bloke who looked like he’d won some sort of competition, and UFC fighter Israel Adesanya, who had a front-row view of the action and had appeared earlier on Larry’s Instagram story.

I wanted Larry June to be so much better than he was. I wanted to be impressed. I wanted to be able to get back in my van, and listen to some of his music – the most recent of which was released on 10 November – on my drive home, and think “wow, Larry was great, I am glad I discovered him”.

Sadly, that’s not the case. While I’m taking a keen interest in the work of modern MCs like Oddisee, Marlon Craft, Rapsody, Symba and recent discovery Eric Jamal, Larry June doesn’t get off the starting blocks for me. To my veteran ears, it’s cut-and-paste rap which sounds a lot like plenty of other contemporary material I let pass me by.

The kids love it, but I’m not a kid any more, and so maybe  – like Principal Skinner – I am out of touch.

A quick word about the support acts. Barrell-bellied Monroe Flow is an American rapper who claims he’s a superstar, although a quick Google search reveals very little about him. Like Denzel, he swears a lot and seems to be pretty gangster. He was okay, and that was about it.

Local hero Melodownz has improved as a lyricist and performer since I first encountered him two years ago. He has a good stage presence, some clever social commentary, and his raps are clear and precise. I like where he’s going with his craft.

Jeff Neems Instagram: @jeffwiththerecord

Click on any image to view a photo gallery by Hugo Coleman: