If you’ve been longing to throw your hands in the air and wave them like you just don’t care, The Art of Rap Fest is the place where you can say, “Oh yeah!” Sponsored by Backspin, the July 23 festival promises a night that will have fans reliving the golden era of rap.
The incendiary Public Enemy headlines with social commentary from Chuck D, currently enjoying a resurgence in popularity due to side project Prophets of Rage, and the man who made giant hanging clocks fashionable, Flavor Flav. Mount Rushmore of Rap members The Sugarhill Gang, pictured, will test you to see if you know every lyric of “Rapper’s Delight.”
Other acts include the twice-reunited rock ’n’ roll-sampling rhyming duo EPMD, OG Furious Five members Grandmaster Melle Mel and Scorpio, and one of the East Coast’s finest tandems, Mobb Deep.
But perhaps the block party will hit its highest points when Kurtis Blow and his crew teach you “The Breaks” and how to play “Basketball” or when Naughty By Nature brings its slew of New Jersey ’90s hip-hop hits to the stage. Yes, on this night, everyone will be “down with OPP.”
Downtown Las Vegas Events Center, 200 S. Third St., 7 p.m. July 23, starting at $28 plus tax and fee. 702.388.2111
