Goodie Mob + Scarface + Slick Rick

B.B. King Blues Club & Grill; Fri 13

Photograph: Diwang Valdez

Southern rap has grown so ubiquitous over the past decade that it’s easy to forget it was anything but commercial just a few years earlier. Revisiting Goodie Mob’s stark 1995 debut LP, Soul Food, makes for a great reminder: The landmark album spawned the phrase Dirty South—and, along with OutKast’s Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, put Atlanta’s ascension into motion—but the song from whence the slogan came was about slavery, not strip clubs. Given Cee-Lo’s overwhelming success with the decidedly less provocative Gnarls Barkley, his return to the Goodie fold is surprising. But when a lyrical cipher like Gucci Mane can be anointed the South’s new king, this ATL foursome’s re-formation is a welcome development.

Before Soul Food, there was Scarface. Both in the Geto Boys and as a solo artist, the preternaturally wizened Houstonian established the hustler-as-rapper template borrowed by everyone from Jay-Z to Young Jeezy. The South’s first true rap star despite his penchant for melancholy and gory details, ’Face claimed he was retiring after last year’s Emeritus. Now, with no new album to promote, he makes his first area appearance in untold years. Go figure.

There’s not much novelty to an NYC appearance by Slick Rick; thanks to a pardon from Governor David Paterson that rescued him from deportation last year, the U.K.-born, Harlem-reared storyteller performs here all the time. But rarely has he been in such good company.—Jesse Serwer

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