It’s a rare thing when a supergroup comes together and releases some meaningful music. 25 years ago a super group did just that and the self titled Deltron 3030 record was released. The core members of the group include Del tha Funky Homosapien (solo artist, Hieroglyphics, Gorillaz), Dan the Automator (Handsome Boy Modeling School, Lovage, Gorillaz) and Kid Koala (solo artist, The Slew, Lovage, Gorillaz). Not only was this first record meaningful, I see it as one of, if not the most important hip hop record of all time. In celebration of the 25 anniversary of this release the core trio recently completed a tour of the West Coast and North East performing the entire album to fans. It’s more than just a concept album, adding operatic themes woven in science fiction and also produced the prophetic song Virus. The song was written implying an ordinary citizen was able to cause chaos to government control over citizens.
I wanna devise a virus
To bring dire straits to your environments
Crush your corporations with a mild touch
Trash your whole computer system and revert you to papyrus
For a while, I kept waiting and hoping there would a concert in my home of Atlanta, but after a while, I realized that it wasn’t going to happen this time around and started planning to travel to catch one of these shows. We settled on one of the two nights in NYC and after reading about the clubs, ended up with Irving Plaza even though both venues (the other being Webster Hall). While living in Santa Cruz, I had the opportunity to see them with a full orchestra at Stern Grove in San Francisco as well as with their extended band at the Catalyst Club in Santa Cruz. These performances were in support of their second record Event II, released in 2013. Getting the opportunity to see them again was a such a pleasure and they didn’t disappoint. In the album the 3 members are a part of the Galactic Rhyme Federation, who work to overthrow the corporations who have taken over. Del unites with Dan the Automator to fight the oppressive regime through music in an intergalactic rap battle to regain control of free thinking.
The album contains many gems including “Things you can do”, which takes it’s line from a song by the Poppy Family entitled “What can the matter be“. The original song speaks of racial inequality, with the lyric Things you can do, some can’t be done .Many progressive rock bands have futuristic music that have ventured us into outer space in a way muscially similar to Deltron, As there have been rock opera’s however in most cases that’s where the similarity ends, minus any deep commentary that leads us to a dystopian world. Rock bands were often more apt to do this, such as The Who, To be fair, just having music that is ground breaking and futuristic is often fun enough, however the addition of characters fighting against injustice with bars that slap as hard as the beats do is next level stuff.
The song Mastermind is about Dan the Automator. The song references both Dan and Deltron on earth to fight the War of the Worlds through their music. Del raps about Dan’s ability to orchestrate music and the two are able to get through to the public who don’t have control of their thoughts.
First we coerce your brain patterns
Collaborate with time-consumin’ re-programmin’
I apply the flow cannon, the combo’s so slamming
Atomically reconstruct the whole canvas- Mastermind
Irving Plaza reminded me a little of Great American Music Hall in its size, style and age of the Theater. We more or less decided on it because it had a rich history of punk and hip hop shows in the 70’s and 80’s. Webster Hall and Irving Plaza were both sold out. The group posted thanks to the city for the sell out, giving nods to NY as the birth of rap music. We know Oakland also played its role in the emergence of rap. In the bay area you’re likely to see a fairly large part of the audience wearing Hieroglyphics gear. In the Empire City, Del wore opener Lord Sko’s shirt as a nod to the next generation of Hip Hop.
The second act was and Kid Koala with Lealani, who performed both individually and as a duo. Part of their duo included a song from their group Distorter with Lealani on guitar and Vocals and Kid Koala on drums. Lealani used a combination of guitars and synths to gain interest with a solid opening set. She performed her songs Miniscule and Onomotopoeia (a song with serious nods to Sister Nancy). Kid Koala performed his rendition of Moon River among other songs for his part to get things warmed up. Kid Koala has taken opening duties in previously as he opened for the group in Santa Cruz 12 years ago. With a brand new release by Lealani and an upcoming album by Deltron 3030 to be released in 2026, here’s hoping this is just the beginning of the tour with these genre defying artists.
