This one bill offers two different flavors of hip-hop nostalgia served up by two well-respected rap groups. Together, how's it taste? With the Cool Kids, we get rhymes about muppets, BMX bikes, Beastie Boys and the joys of 1988. With Clipse, we get gun shots, sixty synonyms for crack cocaine, and the paralyzing dread felt by a hustler who knows that by the end of the day he'll either have killed or been killed. So… sweet and sour? It'll work together better than it seems: Both acts know how to deliver hooks and build a mood with a beat. One's just a little scarier than the other, is all.
Sun., Aug. 16, 7 p.m., 2009
