Pop Reviews : ‘Summer Jam ‘92’ an Eight-Hour Rap Ordeal

Live rap music in its most basic, unadulterated, unvarnished form returned to Orange County in a big way Saturday after a 20-month absence.

Much too big a way, actually.

“Summer Jam ‘92” at the 12,000-capacity Santa Ana Stadium was the first major bill of street-level, non-crossover rap performers in the county since a shooting took place at the Celebrity Theatre in Anaheim during an Ice Cube concert in December, 1990.

The three best performers on Saturday’s bill might have combined for an interesting two-hour show. Instead, the concert was an eight-hour ordeal (albeit a mellow, trouble-free ordeal) marked by too many delays and too many sets by dull, anonymous performers who didn’t merit a major stage. The first six hours were played out under a scorching sun that baked a racially diverse audience of about 4,000 fans into inertness.

During those hours when the sun was making a much stronger statement than any of the performers, there was only one way that an act could get a cheer from the listless crowd: invoke the name of the day’s headliner, Cypress Hill. The Los Angeles group didn’t disappoint. Its set may have been a fragmented jumble in terms of pacing, but at least it was an action-filled half-hour that packed an energetic jolt, combining wise-guy humor with troubling portrayals of violence.

Cypress Hill’s lead rapper, B-Real, displayed a piercing, nasal sing-song well-suited to mockery. Delivering accounts of street violence, like “Hand on the Pump” (as in pump-action shotgun) and “How I Could Just Kill a Man,” B-Real sounded disturbingly casual, as if violent death in the streets is just child’s play. Of course, that is exactly what it has come to.

Rapping about its fondness for marijuana, Cypress Hill unveiled a sculpture of a gigantic thumb and forefinger holding a six-foot joint that billowed smoke. The trio also got into the ongoing rappers vs. cops controversy with a mocking, profane ditty called “Pigs.” But B-Real drew an important distinction right after he finished the song. “Let’s get one thing straight,” he said. “Not all police are pigs. Only the corrupt ones are pigs. . . . The rest are police officers. We’ll say ‘peace’ to them, but (expletive) all pigs.” Maybe he ought to send a memo on this to Ice-T.

Also worth hearing were second-billed Black Sheep, a New York duo strong on humor, and Kid Frost, one of the first Chicano rappers. Frost’s sharp delivery made up for his weird decision to start the show with five minutes of egotistical complaining that he has become the subject of rumors concerning illegitimate children and hanging with gangs. The crowd didn’t seem to care much one way or the other.