Mack 10 Delivers Gangsta Rap With a Smile and a Surprise

When L.A. rapper Mack 10 stalked onto the House of Blues stage on Tuesday and declared that gangsta rap was very much alive, it was hard to dispute the claim.

A tireless performer with a relentless, rat-a-tat-tat delivery, Mack 10 and his surprise guests Ice Cube and Snoop Doggy Dogg hit the ground running with their head-nodding funk and didn’t let up for nearly 90 minutes, thereby proving that the much-maligned genre is only as vital as its best artists.

While Mack 10 hews close to gangsta rap’s familiar themes, he refuses to buy into its heavy-handed posturing, delivering his urban morality tales with a smile instead of a scowl. Wearing a purple jersey and matching baseball cap, Mack 10 strode across the stage with urgent conviction, unleashing his rapid-fire oratory to the accompaniment of pounding, depth-charge beats and a small crew of rapping associates.

But the show turned into a West Coast rap summit when Mack 10 brought on Ice Cube and W.C., his cohorts in the trio Westside Connection, to perform with him. Still the genre’s most exciting performer, Cube worked the crowd to a fever pitch, spewing his raps with razor-sharp clarity and intensity. Snoop Doggy Dogg’s stirring guest shot on “Only in California” confirmed that, despite all that has befallen gangsta rap in recent years, rumors of its death are still greatly exaggerated.

Opening act Kool Keith is a hip-hop conceptualist with astounding verbal skills. Although he performed selections from his two most recent albums, “Sex Style” and “Dr. Octagon,” the set was really a showcase for his amazing freestyling technique, in which he effortlessly name-checked everyone from John McEnroe to Richard Gere.