Gig Review: Rapping, Producing, DJing, Often All At Once - Black Milk Delivers The Goods

Detroit rapper/producer Black Milk was a one man band on stage at Valhalla on a Sunday night. It was a broad survey of his 20-year career squished into a nice tight hour. Here's my review.

Black Milk

Sunday, June 9

Valhalla, Wellington

Curtis Eugene Cross records, tours, and produces/collaborates under the name Black Milk. He’s been at for two decades, first coming to fame for his beats in collaboration with Slum Village, then to a production that was sampled by a pre-fame Kendrick Lamar. From there he continued to collaborate — Danny Brown, Earl Sweatshirt, Robert Glasper — and he’s featured guests like Pete Rock, Cypress Hill and Karriem Riggins on his own album. That’s the beginnings of a list though.

Black Milk has been a live band with instruments, a one-man show, and almost all aspects in between, a constantly evolving “Brandname” for Cross’ clever melodic hooks (particular on his latest album) and J Dilla-esque cut’n’paste beats that take from all styles.

So, for his show at Valhalla he hits the stage on a Sunday night, eager to keep the crowd hyped. His energy is instantly infectious, and he kicks off with some of the material from his most recent record, Everybody Good? There’s a slightly more melodic edge to these tracks (For How Much?)than his earlier rhythm-based productions. And we get some sunny, day-glo pop mixed in with the R’n’B feel.

For the first few songs it’s Cross at the microphone, but as he reminds everyone, everything you’re hearing is by him. He decides it’s time to DJ a bit and with his laptop and MPC he moves some of the beats around, enjoying slowing the tempo, and offering some live sound manipulations, some on-the-fly producing.

Then it’s to his laptop and mixing desk at the back of the stage for everything from some good ole Detroit bounce, through shades of techno to brittle, broken-beat vibes, including his song that featured J Dilla, and his track (Really Doe) that pulls together Ab-Soul, Kendrick Lamar and Danny Brown:

There was also a dive back to earlier solo records, such as 2018’s Fever. The Thundercat-feel of True Lies was arguably one of the highlights of the night. But in this broad-survey that was kept tight inside an hour, Black Milk was able to delight with random beats stored in his laptop, as well as the name-drops and shoutouts to Dilla and Kendrick. It was never likely he would fail. There’s the track-record, the music. But there’s also his perfect energy for the stage.

There was funk and soul, there were classic old school crowd shouts — “hell yeah” and “fuck yeah” and all of that — but what made it work wasn’t just the bump and grind and feel and flow of the evening, it was the laidback, but on point charm of Cross and his performance. Yes, the talent is there, in his fingers and brain, and through his voice, but it’s the way he’s able to basically take what almost amounted to a studio-muckaround, or a record-collection hang (all of us in his lounge basically, and him picking a selection of favourite beats) and make it a show, an exciting, vibing, kick-ass little show. A small show, absolutely. But a vital one.