The audience at the House of Blues bood and shouted obscenities toward the stage last Saturday night when Brotha Lynch Hung decided to end his performance after only four songs and 20 minutes.
It's a shame, considering the hype. Brotha Lynch Hung is a seasoned rap veteran known for his horrorcore style of hip-hop. Horrorcore is the logical extreme of rap, like rap music inspired more by the Saw movies and Texas Chainsaw Massacre than by likes of The Godfather or Scarface. Brotha Lynch is seen as one of the fathers of this style, spitting graphically about psychosis, torture and cannibalism in his rhymes. His long career has seen a resurgence in the last two years, with the release of Dinner and a Movie and Tha Coathanga Strangla. These two loose concept albums play out like movie thrillers, with Brotha Lynch in the role of a deranged serial killer disguised as a rap star, taking his prey in gruesome fashion while narrowly evading detectives.
It was definitely no surprise to see the large crowd inside the venue, waiting for the rapper to appear onstage. Brotha Lynch has always enjoyed an especially sizable fanbase in San Diego. On top of that, it was an all-ages show (which is really shocking, considering the graphic content -- not that I'm complaining; I just wouldn't have thought that would have been allowed in conservative-minded SD).
But after stomaching roughly an hour of knockoff Brotha Lynch-style music from Lynch's Madesicc crew, the eager audience was treated to a less-than-eager performance from the master of horrorcore. Lynch ambled onstage, showing his age, then quickly ran through some of his most recent singles in an uninspired 9-to-5 attitude, barely able to hide the disinterest in his body, even with his homeys clogging up the stage in front and all around him. After just over 20 minutes, he zipped off. At first, the crowd thought that he was joking and that the rapper would quickly make a re-entrance for an encore. Then the lights flipped, on and that's when the jeers started to fly.
Quan Vu Quan Vu is the founder and editor of local music blog SD Raps.com. He has also written about local and national hip-hop acts for San Diego CityBeat and the San Diego Reader. You can nerd out on rap trivia by following him on Twitter or e-mailing him directly.
