Rap’s Show of Shows

Let’s not hear any more of that grumbling about rap just not working in a live setting.

Though still widely held in pop circles, the notion is long out of date, thanks largely to the momentum started six years ago by the annual Smokin’ Grooves tour.

Before the first Grooves outing in 1996, there was a genuine concern in pop about the viability of hip-hop and rap concerts. Despite selling millions of albums and helping shape pop culture, rap concerts had a history of poorly organized shows, weak sound and other production values, and frequently amateurish performances. Occasional security lapses didn’t help matters.

Grooves changed all that by bringing to rap the same professionalism long associated with pop and rock events. Several other high-profile rap tours have sprung up, but Grooves remains the model.

This excellence was evident again Friday at the Universal Amphitheatre as Grooves returned after a three-year break with a lineup headed by OutKast, one of the most exciting attractions ever in rap.

Cee-Lo, from Atlanta’s Goodie Mob and Dungeon Family creative stream, opened the five-hour concert with a half-hour set that suggested he is as much influenced by soul music as hip-hop.

If the rapper, who shifts with ease between rapping and singing, had been recording back in the ‘60s, he and such tunes as “Closet Freak” would been right at home on Stax Records, the soul-oriented label of Otis Redding and Booker T. & the MGs. Cee-Lo’s five-piece band played with funk-accented drive that gave much of the music a joyful, explosive edge. Cee-Lo’s lyrics, too, include some thoughtful reflections on relationships and life.

Next up was Truth Hurts, who surely has the best stage name ever for an R&B; singer whose songs deal aggressively with the intensity of sexual politics.

The first woman signed by Dr. Dre’s Aftermath label, Truth proved to be a confident, winning performer who combines some of the independence of Macy Gray and the sassiness of Millie Jackson.

Working with a six-piece band and three back-up singers (also cleverly named: the Consequences), Truth has a strong, forceful voice but needs far stronger material to reach her considerable potential.

Jurassic 5, which followed, is a leader in L.A.’s respected (but commercially challenged) “positive rap” movement and their set Friday was typically uplifting and warm.

The group is so engaging that you wonder whether the “positive rap” label doesn’t handicap it in the marketplace, where the term may be synonymous with “wimpy rap.”

It’s more instructive to think of Jurassic 5, with its four rappers and two DJs, as simply imaginative and original alt-rappers--musicians who, like OutKast and the Roots, stay clear of gangsta rap territory. Where Cee-Lo and the Roots showed Friday the value of live bands, Jurassic 5’s Cut Chemist and Nu-Mark took over at one point for a blistering workout that belittled the argument of hip-hop outsiders that turntable DJs aren’t true artists.

The Roots, who came on after Jurassic 5, helped introduce live musicianship to hip-hop years ago, and it’s possible that has hurt the veteran Philadelphia outfit commercially the same way “positive rap” has stymied Jurassic 5. The Roots may be seen by young rap fans as some sort of worthy novelty, but the group is worthy by any standard.

Black Thought is a stylish, convincing rapper with biting, socially conscious lyrics, and there’s an equal authority and spark to the five-piece band’s jazzy-funk style. The Roots had such a powerful presence Friday that it would have been hard for most acts to follow.

But OutKast had little trouble in that closer role because the Georgia duo is in a class of its own.

Andre Benjamin (Dre), one of the most charismatic figures in rap, and Antoine Patton (Big Boi) combine the street sensibilities of rap with the creative explosiveness of Parliament-Funkadelic and a sort of Sly Stone sense of community. The rappers use both DJs and live musicians, and their themes range from flat-out fun to social consciousness without ever sacrificing a strong, disarming pop sensibility.

Even at the best of shows, some of the crowd starts heading for the exit by midnight, but everyone held their ground Friday. You don’t walk out on OutKast. The audience was rewarded with a closing barrage that included three of the most appealing tracks of recent years in the anthem-like “Rosa Parks,” the tender “Ms. Jackson” and the simply jubilant “B.O.B.” It’s a good thing no one had to follow that.