I finally saw the Roots live for the first time last night. I kept hearing how they were amazing live, and even though I was expecting nothing less than a spectacular show, the show still exceeded my expectations. It was that good!

The venue was a small place called Freebird Live in my hometown of Jacksonville, Florida. The venue is of course named after Lynyrd Skynyrd's cIassic song Free Bird as Lynyrd Skynyrd is from Jacksonville and the venue is owned by the widow of Lynyrd Skynyrd's lead singer. The Roots took forever to finally come out on stage, and I assume it was because they were trying to learn how to play Free Bird for us, which they did end up covering later in the show for the first time, as ?uestlove told us.

The Roots played for over two hours when they finally did come out, so it was well worth the wait. They walked out onto the stage one by one, playing The World Is A Ghetto by War, which led directly into I Can't Help It, one of the Roots' own songs. The Roots ran through a lot of songs from their last two albums Game Theory and Rising Down. From what I remember they played 75 Bars (Black's Reconstruction), Get Busy, Criminal, I Will Not Apologize, I Can't Help It, and Rising Up off of Rising Down and In the Music, Don't Feel Right, Long Time, and Here I Come off of Game Theory.

They also went all the way back to the Do You Want More?!!!??! days from the mid 90's and played cIassics like Proceed and Mellow My Man to a loud ovation from the crowd. They played fan favorite from Phrenology, the Seed (2.0), and also another favorite off the Tipping Point, the Sly & Family Stone influenced Star. They also dove into a lot of their cIassics from Things Fall Apart including one of my absolute favorite songs in Act Too (Love of My Life), Step Into the Realm, and an amazing extended version of You Got Me which had a great guitar solo by Captain Kirk and included a short rendition of My Favorite Things.

All of the Roots walked off stage only about 45 minutes into the show, and a lot of people thought they were ending, but I knew the Roots wouldn't disappoint. Guitarist Captain Kirk, drummer ?uestlove, and sousaphone player Tuba Gooding Jr. all walked back onto the stage and played the craziest cover of Bob Dylan's Masters of War that I've ever heard. The cover was played to the melody of the Star Spangled Banner, mixed in Jimi Hendrix's epic Machine Gun, included a crazy drum solo by ?uestlove, and even had a freaking sousaphone solo! Unbelievable.

And that's not all. The Roots then went on to play short covers of songs like Iron Butterfly's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Kanye West's Flashing Lights, Jay-Z's Roc Boys (and had everyone throwing their diamonds in the sky), Biz Markie's Just a Friend, Ol' Dirty Bastard's Shimmy Shimmy Ya and the Wu-Tang Clan's M.E.T.H.O.D. Man (threw my W up!), Afrika Bambaataa's Planet Rock, Salt-N-Pepa's Push It, the Sugarhill Gang's Apache (I did do the dance ), Talib Kweli's Hot Thing and Get By, Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre's Deep Cover, Dr. Dre's Dre Day, Snoop Dogg's Sensual Seduction, Rich Boy's Throw Some D's, MIM's This Is Why I'm Hot, Justin Timberlake's SexyBack, Timbaland's The Way I Are, and later on Kool & the Gang's Jungle Boogie, and Curtis Mayfield's Move On Up! And the Roots just blew the roof off when they covered Kool G Rap's Men At Work in it's entirety for the finale, the crowd was going absolutely crazy!

I was standing a couple people back from the stage and was right in the middle, so I had a great view. After the show I went up to the stage and got to shake Black Thought's hand and watch as ?uestlove started signing his drumsticks and drumheads, and then throwing them into the audience to the delight of the wild fans. All in all it was an amazing night!

I went to the show this past Monday in Tampa, Florida and it was phenominal. It was so much bigger and crazier than anything I've ever been to. Lupe Fiasco, N*E*R*D, and Rihanna opened for him and then Kanye tore down the place for 90 minutes straight! Radiohead was playing the next day at the same venue so I almost went to both shows on back to back nights, but my friend who drove us had to leave right after the Kanye show. But I was more than satisfied just seeing Kanye

This is how the tour looked (not my photos):

Memphis vs. Kansas

I'm still sticking with my pick of Memphis. I feel as though Derrick Rose will be main factor in Memphis winning. Rose is too much for Sherron Collins and Mario Chalmers of Kansas to handle. Derrick Rose has been amazing all tournament, most recently making UCLA's Darren Collison look awful. However, if Kansas' bigs, mainly Darrell Arthur, Sasha Kaun, and the suprising Cole Aldrich, get going they could pull it off too, as the main advantage Kansas has over Memphis is their size downlow. Chris Douglas-Roberts vs. Brandon Rush will be a good matchup as well, as both are among the best shooting guards in the country. But all in all, I just think Memphis' guards and combination of athleticism they have at every position make them too good to lose.

Winner: Memphis

Kansas vs. North Carolina

I'm having a hard time deciding but I'm leaning towards Kansas. The best player on either team is Tyler Hansbrough, but I feel as though Brandon Rush of Kansas will have a big game and Darrell Arthur will do his best to contain Psycho-T. The PG matchup between Tywon Lawson and Mario Chalmers should be interesting as well.

Winner: Kansas


UCLA vs. Memphis

Memphis has been my favorite team going into the tournament and I'm still sticking with them to beat a great UCLA team. Memphis' Derrick Rose has been absolutely phenominal the last few games and he tore up All-American D.J. Augustine the last game. For UCLA, Kevin Love who will most likely be matched up against the very athletic two-time C-USA Defensive Player of the Year Joey Dorsey, will need to keep up his great play in order to win, and Darren Collison needs to step up to the challenge of Derrick Rose.

Winner: Memphis

(May 21st, 1972- March 9th, 1997)

Today is the 11th Anniversary of Biggie Smalls tragic death

I'd say I've listened to over 500-600 rap albums in my life. I've listened to everything from old school albums (old school as in albums from before 1987, because I know some of you think old school rap is 90's rap, and it isn't) to the newest of the new school out currently today. I've listened to the deepest of the underground to the forefront of the mainstream. And out of all these rap albums that I've listened to, my favorite is Ready to Die by the Notorious B.I.G.

What separated Biggie from almost every MC was his rare ability to walk the thin line between hardcore street lyricism that you see in underground hip-hop, yet at the same time being able to be extremely successful in the mainstream and gain commercial appeal. I attribute this to his ability to perfect so many different styIes of rap music and being such a well rounded MC.

FreestyIe--- Biggie freestyling on a Bed Stuy street corner--- watch as Biggie's competitor gives up and just walks away.

Storytelling--- Gimme the Loot--- Biggie raps from the perspective of two criminals watching people pass by as they plan to rob them.

Realism--- Things Done Changed--- Here Biggie raps about life and struggle in the Bed Stuy projects. One of the great things about hip-hop is that it lets people voice their opinions on the world around them. Hip-hop is the voice of the youth. With that being said, rappers use their voice in different ways to describe the realities of the world around them, and Biggie was exceptional at it.

"If I wasn't in the rap game/I'd probably have a key knee deep in the crack game/'cause the streets is a short stop/either you're slangin' crack rock or you got a wicked jumpshot" perfectly captures the realism of growing up and escaping the hood. For many of these kids, the sad reality of escaping the hood comes down to selling drugs or becoming a ball player.

Flow--- Notorious Thugs--- Biggie teams up Bone Thugs-N-Harmony in a great song showing off his flow.

Party Songs--- One More Chance (Remix)--- Hearthrob? Never/Black and ugly as ever, however, I stay Coogi down to the socks. What's a party without some Biggie? Wack.

Punchlines--- Kick in the Door--- Teamed up with arguably the greatest hip-hop producer of all-time, DJ Premier, Biggie drops bombs on all those with disrespectful views on the King of N.Y.

Shock Value--- Suicial Thoughts--- Great ending to a great album. Biggie was not scared to say anything on a microphone. He was one of those rappers that made you rewind what you just heard and think to yourself, did he just say that?!

Substance--- Juicy--- Quite possibly the ultimate from nothing to something song in hip-hop.

Word. Congrats after being robbed last year.

Behind the backboard off the glass left handed windmill
Superman dunk
Double pass