O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : A Lazy, Not Very Crazy, Summer Jam

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 Santa Ana Stadium was a 14-act bill whose three or four best performers might have combined for an interesting 2 1/2-hour show. Instead, the concert was an eight-hour ordeal (albeit a mellow, trouble-free ordeal) marked by too many delays and too many desultory 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 (but mostly Latino) audience of about 4,000 fans--sprinkled among some 12,000 seats--into inertness.

Waiting for the interminable afternoon under-card to play out, one had to wonder whether Orange County was really missing much during those months of exile for street-level hip-hop. It wasn’t until dusk, when the temperature dropped, that the “Summer Jam” got hotter and the audience--or at least that part of it not already exhausted beyond caring--came to life.

(Historical note: Before Saturday, the last major all-rap bill in the county had taken place Dec. 27, 1990, at the Celebrity Theatre in Anaheim. The Celebrity had been the most active venue for rap in the Southland until a nonfatal shooting and melee marred a show headlined by hard-core rapper Ice Cube. Since then, the only name rappers to play Orange County have been pretenders like Vanilla Ice and Marky Mark, multiplatinum pop crossovers like Hammer and Kriss Kross--which is booked to play next month at Irvine Meadows--and a smattering of tougher rap acts who appeared on rock festival bills.)

During the afternoon, 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 (an abiding problem of rap concerts), but at least it was an action-filled half hour that packed an energetic jolt, combining ironic, wise-guy humor with troubling portrayals of violence.

Cypress Hill’s wiry, bearded lead rapper, B-Real, has a nasal, piercing sing-song voice that’s 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. It was scary watching Cypress Hill lead the audience in pointing imaginary handguns in the air--the sort of thing that a generation ago could have been taken for mere child’s play, but now looks spooky. Cypress Hill’s raps did at least note that killing has its consequences--namely prison. But that was cold comfort.

Through no fault of the band’s, things became truly frightening for a heart-stopping moment during its set. As Cypress Hill performed “Hand on the Pump,” hundreds of fans on the stadium floor suddenly flew into a screaming, panicked, all-out dash for the exits. Something awful had to be unfolding in front of the stage, and for an agonizing moment one imagined an end to rap in Orange County once and for all.

In fact, there was no fighting, stabbing, or shooting. Just moshing.

About 10 slam-dance enthusiasts had formed one of those frenzied but friendly human cyclotrons (known as mosh pits) that are commonplace at punk and metal shows. Seeing bodies rushing and clashing, rap fans unused to the custom must have concluded, not illogically, that a riot was breaking out.

Rapping about its fondness for marijuana, Cypress Hill unveiled a sculpture of a gigantic thumb and forefinger holding a six-foot-long, neatly rolled joint that proceeded to billow smoke through most of the show. The trio also got into the ongoing rappers-versus-cops controversy with a mocking, profane ditty called “Pigs.”

But B-Real was able to draw an important distinction. “Let’s get one thing straight. Not all police are pigs. Only the corrupt ones are pigs . . . ,” he said. “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.

In a curious ending, Cypress Hill exited the stage after leading a profane chant against Budweiser, with B-Real claiming that the beer’s brewer has been funding a federal campaign to eradicate the Northern California marijuana crop. So much for saving the best, liveliest, most touching or most important statement for last.

Black Sheep, a black New York duo on a bill made up mostly of Southern California Latino rappers, got across with silly but clever material and a naturally funny delivery that made even that tedious rap ritual, the which-side-of-the-house-can-yell-louder contest, sort of fun.

These were technically strong rappers, especially Mr. Lawnge, whose deep, trenchant, sardonic voice was made for rap comedy. Black Sheep also was willing to part with hip-hop fashion conventions. On a day of baggy shorts, Lawnge (pronounced “long”) and partner Dres came out dressed in duds that might have been bought out of an L.L. Bean catalogue. And Lawnge, at one point, even paused to tie one of his tan carpenter’s boots when it came unknotted. Isn’t the tying of shoes considered a sacrilege among hip-hop’s unlaced brotherhood of Air Jordanaires?

The day’s other New York group, Fu-Schnickens, has a song called “True Fuschnick” whose cadence is as nastily insinuating as the craftiest TV jingle. The trio managed to botch even that, though, in an inept set in which the rappers’ lines kept bumping into each other, turning the performance into a disjointed gabble of clashing parts. Chip Fu was the worst culprit, delivering Jamaican “toaster”-style raps at incomprehensible speeds.

Kid Frost, one of the first Chicano rappers, was the most interesting performer of the day’s first half, and, with his firm, crisp and varied delivery, he was one of the most technically accomplished rappers of the day. His raps mixed statements of ethnic pride, like “La Raza” and “Another Firme Rola (Bad Cause I’m Brown),” with cautionary tales about the consequences of gang-banging. “Ain’t No Sunshine,” which appropriated the Bill Withers hit, conveyed both sadness and scorn for those who wind up in prison after committing acts of violence.

Despite those virtues, the portly, slope-shouldered Frost couldn’t get through to the audience in his midafternoon set. That was largely his own fault, as he opened not with music, but with a long, pointless rant decrying rumors concerning his fathering of illegitimate children and his hanging with gangs.

A.L.T., a songwriting collaborator of Kid Frost’s, delivered a punchy but lightweight set that remade the old pop hit “Tequila” with lyrics celebrating getting drunk. The original was an instrumental, and much the better for it.

The show marked both a homecoming and a birthday celebration for Santa Ana-raised rapper Robert Gutierrez, who is one-half of A Lighter Shade of Brown. The group, now based in Riverside, scored a hit recently with “On a Sunday Afternoon,” which samples the Rascals’ “Groovin” and “Crystal Blue Persuasion” by Tommy James and the Shondells on the way to evoking a perfect lazy day in the park. Instead of rapping with the smooth, sinuous cool their song required, the rappers went at it with blatant barking. Other raps offered much the same.

Technotronic, more a neo-disco act than a rap outfit, did not perform, which may have been just as well for the hit group since it was booed the one time it was mentioned from the stage. No announcement was made to the audience, but promoter Carlos Quintanilla said backstage that the group’s singer, Ya Kid K, missed the show because of illness.

Among the lesser-known acts on the bill, Street Mentality showed the most promise with muscular, well-coordinated raps that recalled Run-D.M.C.