On Saturday night in downtown L.A. the third annual “We The People” music festival jumped off with a laundry list of talent, from RZA to Primo to Les Claypool. I got there well after dark, hit the beer garden for a couple of tap-water flat Miller Lites and watched the folks who’d been there since 2 p.m. relinquish sanitary practice for a comfortable seat among plastic cups and cigarette butts peppering trampled grass. The problem with being fashionably late is you usually miss all the fun.

Nonetheless, I caught the act I came to see — Murs. The super locked MC blasted his way through a half hour set with high-fructose punch, igniting a bleary-eyed audience into crowd-surfable waves. After covering a sizable chunk of material from his new album, Murs For President, the So Cal native brought out another local, and legend — Kurupt. Folks damn near stomped each other to get a picture of the man as he regaled them with a few bars. And though that moment felt a certain climax of the night, it was during EPMD’s set the true surprise of the night got the blood a-rushing. Read the rest of this entry »