Concert Review: The Rapper’s Delight Experience, Maestro Fresh Wes @ Harbourfront Centre

By: Daniel Gerichter (@ZenDonut) –

Portrait of pioneering American hip hop group The Sugar Hill Gang, from left, Guy ‘Master Gee’ O’Brian, Henry ‘Big Bank’ Jackson, and Michael ‘Wonder Mike’ Wright, New York, 1980. (Photo by Anthony Barboza/Getty Images)

Harbourfront Centre in Toronto has celebrated hip hop’s rich history and given top billing to hip hop acts on lineups of free community-centric events in the evenings,, including past performances by Rakim, British act Herbalizer, and more. Last Friday night, they hosted Canadian MC Maestro Fresh Wes and the Rapper’s Delight Experience, formerly the Sugarhill Gang.

The opener – well, funny thing about that, actually. The opening act was actually one half yours truly. Toronto’s Hip Hop Karaoke hosts an annual Posse Cut competition and the champion wins the opportunity  to share the stage with the aforementioned legends. Along with a partner, I performed Lords of the Underground’s “Psycho” and Polaris Prize nominees Freedom Writers awarded us the win.

The always affable OG MuchMusic VJ Michael Williams gave us props before we performed the song to a warm, receptive crowd on a balmy Friday night and then Williams presented us with our medals. To share a stage with artists of thatmagnitude, and to have performed at an event that I was reviewing for Aesthetic Magazine was a beyond-surreal experience – a story for the grandkids, this was.

Maestro Fresh Wes was only slotted for a half-hour performance, but used the full-time to bust out a short career retrospective from his enduring hip-hop career, including hits “Drop the Needle” and “Let Your Backbone Slide”. Old school b-boys – the kinds who made you ashamed of your own moves in middle school dance parties – flanked by Wes, who delved into the spirit of classic hip hop and even busted out some freestyle verses: “I told Rob Ford to stick to your vision / After I saw him eat, I said stick to nutrition” – to which the crowd went wild.

After a short break, bassist Doug Wimbish (of Living Color fame) emerged to accompany Master Gee and Wonder Mike, two key members of the Sugarhill Gang, for their hour-long set. Both members are over 50-years-old and go under the new moniker Rapper’s Delight Experience due to a complex, ugly legal battle with their former record label, which owns the name ‘Sugarhill Gang’ and has barred them from using it for any type of profit whatsoever. Their 2012 documentaryI Want My Name Back explores one of the greatest pop-culture swindles and goes into greater detail about why two pioneers and the creators of hip-hop’s seminal single (and album) are denied the right to lay claim to that accomplishment.

The crowd was absolutely fired up after Wes’ explosive and rambunctious set,  the Sugarhill Gang’s appeal failed to resonate with younger hip-hop fans in the crowd. Several crowd members were overheard asking, “who are these guys?” Regardless, with Wimbish in tow, the tempo and old-school attitude kept the crowd on their feet, many singing along to the group’s predominant hits “Apache” and (naturally) “Rapper’s Delight”. When the bassline hit for the latter classic, Master Gee invited the utterly thrilled Maestro on stage to fill in for the missing Big Bank Hank’s verse. Naturally, he killed it.

Bombastic storytelling remains the enduring thread of hip-hop, but while many, names and members may have changed, the beats and rhymes are what truly cement a legacy. In a rare occasion to share the stage with a few of these legends as hype men for Rapper’s Delight, it occured to me that a welcome dose of fandom mixed with revered tribute underscores the nature of the hip-hop community. We were granted access to step into that world for just a few precious minutes, but the reverence endures.