Philadelphia, PA – April 9, 2008

We left Amsterdam and headed to Meinz which is a little town in Germany with a dope scene for soulful music. Everyone manages to pass through there from hip hop acts like Blu and Ta’raach to electronic soul cats like Marc De Clive Lowe and Zed Bias. The shows at the Red Cat venue are always packed and a whole lot of fun. I was in bed most of the evening trying to shake a migraine headache and missed dinner. In fact, I think everyone was drained and in their rooms so no one ate. We expected to eat after the show but since we didn’t get off stage until 2am, nothing in this small town was open. I killed a turkey sandwich backstage and quickly headed back to the hotel to pack for the next trip.

We then headed to Lyon to play the L’Original festival. I had never been to the South of France so I didn’t know what to expect. I like it enough to stay for a little while. Who knows, maybe I’ll have a kid there at some point. Also on the bill was Method Man, Redman, Chamillionaire, and Scratch. We missed Method Man and Redman but I heard their show was bananas as usual. Chamillionaire was actually scheduled to open for me and Hez but he didn’t feel the room was full enough early on so he decided not to rock, last minute. We had a blast on stage that night for the crowd and afterwards, kicked it for a lil backstage with Charlie Ahearn, the director of Wild Style. He told us all what he enjoyed about each persons contributions on stage. Cool cat. We had a little farewell soiree in the band suite at the W hotel that night since we only had one tour date left.

Our last date was at one of my favorite venues in Europe, Royal Arena in Biel, Switzerland. The sold out crowd of folks always goes ape-shit to joints by Gang Starr, The Roots, Black Star, etc. They tend to be pretty open. So open, that Hez was crowd surfing. It was the 2nd or 3rd time playing at that venue so the crowd knew all the singles and some of the album cuts. I don’t think they fully knew who Jag was though because she had to fight with them a little to get their full attention. Once, she got the crowd of about 2500 fully captivated though, it was on. This show, was like a “hit it and quit it” type of situation since we all had to pack and be ready to leave for the States by 6am. Me and Hez rushed back to the hotel first to try to get our things together and get a jump on a couple of hours of sleep before the airport trip. We ended up laughing about a lot of the tour experiences and didn’t sleep a wink that night. Everyone was knocked out on the plane home and was relieved that the tour came to an end after a successful run. Now off to the UK for the Shape of Broad Minds tour with Jneiro Jarel. Whew…

PARIS, FRANCE