For my concert report I went to see Montezuma Project, an eclectic hip-hop band that incorporates Latin rhythms, soul and jazz in their sound. The band featured live drums, bass, guitar, one trumpet, keyboard, turntables (scratching, creating sound effects and playing pieces of songs), congas, and 2 vocalists "one of which sung in a melodic style, while the other sung in a rap-type of way. This second vocalist was really good; his name is Taboo and he was the former singer of a somewhat famous LA band called Black Eyed Peas. He had a cool style of rapping, repeating phrases outside the beat, and rap-style of moving around the stage looking like an Inca hip-hopper.
As said, Montezuma Project shows very diverse influences in regards to their style, sound and melodies "from Mexican, Cuban and Spanish to African-American. They performed a high-energy/dynamic live show and the crowd was very pleased. They had as special guest a singer from a band called "Burning Star- who they open for and who were also very good. This second band was also based in a core of hip-hop but in their case the extra elements were mainly Rhythm and Blues and Funk rather than Latin and Spanish.
I saw this shows at the Temple Bar in Santa Monica. The venue is medium size, it probably fits around 150 people, and was completely filled. The Temple Bar has a nice setting to see bands since one can get very close to see the details of the performance "the stage is just a couple feet high "or one can go further away to drink or talk, to a second room that is closer to the bar. One can sit there and see the show through an opening in the wall but for this night the only option to really see the bands was to go close to the stage since the place was really filled-out.
There were many Latino people in the crowd, perhaps fans of the band, and they sung many of the songs repeating some of the Spanish choruses.
