Es hört einfach nicht auf. Youtube hat mittlerweile verstanden, dass ich den Tiny Desk Concert Channel feiere und haut mir immer wieder Perlen aus dem Archiv um die Ohren. Im April 2018 war der legendäre O.C. zu Gast bei NPR und spielte ein Konzert mitsamt der Soul’D U Out Liveband und gelegentlicher Unterstützung von dem ebenso legendären Lord Finesse. Quasi ein Viertel der D.I.T.C. Clique. Gespielt werden ausnahmsweise 5 Songs, alle anderen spielten nur 3.

O.C. performt New Day, Day One, Return of the Crooklyn Dodgers, Time’s Up und Born 2 Live und swaggert sie hin, als wäre es nichts. Sackstark!

O.C. was joined at his Tiny Desk by Soul’D U Out, a jazz ensemble led by Grammy-winning trumpeter Maurice „Mobetta“ Brown. The live instrumentation replicated the sample-heavy original recordings perfectly. The crew kicked off the concert with „New Day,“ from O.C.’s 2017 album Same Moon Same Sun, which features young R&B singer Tay Bell on the hook.

The rest of the set was vintage cuts from O.C.’s heyday. „Day One,“ a D.I.T.C. posse cut, featured emcee and producer Lord Finesse, and the joy that poured forth during his verse belied its level of difficulty. (It reminded me that it’d been too long since I enjoyed a Lord Finesse album.) Then O.C. treated the crowd to a version of „Return of the Crooklyn Dodgers“ (the one and only song by him, Jeru The Damaja and Chubb Rock). And of course, he had to fit in his seminal banger and arguably most popular song, „Time’s Up,“ from Word…Life.