With a selection of hip-hop artists both mainstream and underground, the current Rock the Bells tour will satisfy everyone’s needs, especially those turned-off by the hipper-than-thou nature of this weekend’s Pitchfork Music Festival. Heavy-hitters A Tribe Called Quest, Nas, De La Soul and Mos Def headline, all considerable must-sees whenever they tour through town individually. (De La Soul’s performance last year at Pitchfork, funny enough, was one of the finest shows of the summer.) Also on the bill are the respectable The Pharcyde, Rakim and the always-amusing Method Man and Redman, plus the lesser-known Immortal Technique, Dead Prez, Murs and Jay Electronica. The day of topnotch hip-hop is worth the journey down to Tinley Park, for sure. Wow, that’s a sentence not written very often. (Tom Lynch)
Rock the Bells drops July 19 at First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre, 19100 Ridgeland Avenue, Tinley Park, (708)614-1616, at noon. $40-$75.
Cool Aid: A Review of Situation Chicago 2 The album does an outstanding job of bringing home the staggering sonic and stylistic range we deny ourselves when we return too often to the same genre well.
