Never mind doing concert tours, legendary Canadian DJ Skratch Bastid has been bringing his Bastid’s BBQ music festival on tour all year, curating different festival lineups for each city that he’s rocked. So far in 2023 he’s brought his festival to Austin, Las Vegas, Chicago, Calgary and Winnipeg, and would be doing it big for the festival’s original hometown of Toronto. Now in its 11th year, the Toronto edition of the festival would get extended to two days, featuring the same summer Hip-Hop BBQ vibes with quality DJs on the turntables and good food on the grill. Day 1 of the festival would feature several DJs, including Jurassic 5’s DJ Nu-Mark, iconic producer Just Blaze, and would be headlined by legendary Queens, New York emcee, Pharoahe Monch.

In a year where we’re celebrating 50 years of Hip-Hop, Pharoahe Monch may be considered one of the more underrated emcees when we reflect back on his legacy, but it’s definitely an influential legacy that’s made an impact worth celebrating. Often leaving gaps lasting years between his album releases, Monch is an emcee who’s always put quality over quantity and gives fans a chance to miss him, having released three albums with the group Organized Konfusion between 1991 – 1997, followed by four solo albums released between 1999 – 2014, and most recently forming a band called Th1rt3en to release the album A Magnificent Day For An Exorcism in 2021. He even leaves gaps between concert tours, last performing in Toronto as the headliner of the 2012 Manifesto Festival in Dundas Square, making this a rare opportunity for Toronto fans to see him perform live.

This year’s edition of Bastid’s BBQ would take place at The Bentway, which is a relatively new outdoor space underneath the Gardiner Expressway that’s been revamped to host events and art installations. This was my first time seeing a concert at this venue, and it seemed to fit Bastid’s BBQ perfectly, giving it an underground feel with tasteful graffiti murals visible on the pillars holding up the Gardiner, and a mix of gravel, dirt, grass, sidewalk and boardwalk to walk on in the main areas. A Redbull truck transformed into a stage and was parked in the middle of the festival grounds, with a grassy hill as well as concrete steps to a balcony serving as vantage points above the main dance floor. There were also plenty of picnic tables set up near the main entrance, giving fans a dedicated space to enjoy the BBQ portion of the festival with a good distance from the dance floor.

We got to the festival around the mid-afternoon, unfortunately missing a few of the opening performers, and were greeted with a welcoming, friendly environment. Those familiar with the Toronto music scene could notice local DJs and artists casually enjoying the festivities among the fans in the crowd, including a few we saw perform at the Unity Festival in Dundas Square a couple days prior, all here to support DJ Skratch Bastid even if they weren’t performing. We spent our first hour exploring the festival grounds, trying free samples of Monkey Shoulder whisky and Garage hard lemonade, and having a delicious meal from Burger Drops while DJ Iku spun records in the background.

By the time we were ready to join the party on the dance floor, the Bay Area’s own DJ Syrehn was in the middle of a 1-hour set, spinning an eclectic mashup of different genres of music. My favourite moment of her set may have been hearing OutKast’s “The Way You Move” getting mixed into The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army,” which transitioned smoothly into Nirvana’s “Come As You Are.” While Skratch Bastid is known to bring together DJs from around the world, including the previous act DJ Iku being from Japan, the next act would be all local, with Toronto-based producer The Kount taking over the turntables and bringing out a few surprise guests.

While I wasn’t familiar with The Kount going into this, his approach was unique from the beginning, as he had a drum emulator he would play with what looked like a xylophone mallet to go along with his production. After playing a few instrumentals and original songs to warm up the crowd, he’d bring out his first special guest, an artist named Noam who played guitar and sang to his beats. Noam would get to perform a couple songs, including the single “Right Here,” with his smooth vocals over the electronic beats getting the crowd grooving.

The Kount would pull out the big guns with his next special guest, bringing out recent Juno award-winner TOBi, who wouldn’t stay long but would preview a new, unreleased song called “Pale Blue Dot,” sounding smooth with a combination of sung vocals and some rapping. Following TOBi would be a couple Scarborough emcees, Big Tona and Jimmy Yitty performing their song “EST,” which had a more aggressive sound to it. Both emcees cut through sharply on the mic, nailing their verses and getting the crowd turned up. Through each of his surprise guests, The Kount was able to display incredible diversity as a producer.

Skratch Bastid had been hosting throughout the day, introducing each artist and DJ to the stage and even hyping them up during their sets. Now he would get to perform his own set, chopping it up on the turntables for an hour. His set would have plenty of Hip-Hop highlights, including digging up alternate sound samples that make up the beat for Mobb Deep’s “The Learning (Burn),” and mashing up adlibs from Will Smith’s “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It” over De La Soul’s “Saturdays,” very appropriately fitting the day of the week. He’d also touch on other genres throughout his set, having a dope ’80s Pop/Funk segment, and a Reggae/Dancehall segment that put alternate lyrics to classic songs that big up the Bastid himself. No matter what Skratch Bastid played, the crowd kept dancing and the energy levels stayed high throughout his set.

Following Skratch Bastid would be a treat for fans of early 2000s Hip-Hop, as legendary producer Just Blaze would take us on a journey through some of the most iconic songs he’s produced. Starting with the GOAT Just Blaze collaborator, he’d set things off by shouting into the mic “allow me to reintroduce myself!” before dropping the beat to Jay-Z’s “Public Service Announcement.” He’d keep it with Hov for a bit, playing both the original version of “U Don’t Know” and the M.O.P. Remix where he lets the sample breathe a bit, and would move on to The Diplomats with “I Really Mean It” and “Oh Boy” before really going in.

The dopest part about Just Blaze’s set is the way he’d tease the original sample he used to make the beat before dropping the final product. He’d do this for classics he produced from his days at Roc-A-Fella Records, including “Dipset Anthem,” “Roc The Mic” and “Flipside,” even throwing in Joe Budden’s “Pump It Up.” Bringing it back to his contributions to Jay-Z’s catalogue, Jus would blow the fans’ minds with the way he took the often sampled “Super Freak” by Rick James and flipped it in a new way to create Hov’s “Kingdom Come.” He’d also entertain the crowd with some funny interludes, telling a story about being lost in translation with some French women in Paris before dropping Jay-Z’s “Girls, Girls, Girls.” This would kick off a segment of slow jams for the ladies, including Usher’s “Throwback” and Jay-Z’s “Song Cry.”

Just Blaze would give some nods to other producers and artists, bringing back memories of the previous night’s Beer Festival by playing Ice Cube’s “It Was A Good Day,” along with some tracks by The LOX and T.I.. He’d close out his set with a few of his own classics, playing an alternate version of Jay-Z’s “Excuse Me Miss” he has in the vault, and getting the crowd to turn all the way up to Freeway’s “What We Do.” Now at the end of his time slot, Just Blaze would joke with Skratch Bastid that he’d have to kick him off stage because he could go on for hours – and diehard fans know this to be true, as there are plenty of songs Jus skipped out on like Fabolous’ “Breathe,” Ghostface Killah’s “The Champ,” T.I. & Rihanna’s “Live Your Life,” or Eminem & Lil’ Wayne’s “No Love,” to name a few. He did cover the essentials though, highlighting all of his contributions to one of Jay-Z’s masterpieces, The Blueprint.

Setting up on the turntables just as Just Blaze’s set ended was DJ Spictakular, who would begin teasing the next artist by chopping up Organized Konfusion’s “Bring It On,” giving some fans hope that Pharoahe Monch would come out killing his epic verse on that song. While Spictakular’s cuts got the crowd hyped, Pharoahe Monch would instead come out to a deep album cut off of his classic solo debut, 1999’s Internal Affairs, performing the hype M.O.P.-assisted “No Mercy” with his impeccable breath control on full display. Much of Pharoahe’s set would lean in on that album, as he recently celebrated its 20th anniversary by making it available on streaming services for the first time and announcing a long-awaited sequel called External Affairs coming in 2024. He’d move right along into “Behind Closed Doors” before sprinkling in some rarities into his setlist.

Introducing his next song as simply a freestyle about cheese, it would actually be the most recent song Pharoahe Monch would perform all evening, doing his guest feature on Your Old Droog & Tha God Fahim’s 2021 track “Slam Dunk Contest.” He performed the verse at a slow pace so that the crowd could pick up on all the cheese-related wordplay, and followed up the newest song of his set with the oldest, sticking to the theme of showing off wordplay with the 1994 Organized Konfusion track “Stray Bullet.” The throwback being at a much more rapid-fire pace, it’s incredible seeing Pharoahe Monch still able to nail his intricate flows on the verse live in person. With stray bullets on the mind, Pharoahe would next do a song telling a story about bullets in his hometown with another Internal Affairs deep cut, “Queens.” You could tell that unfortunately not all of the crowd was very familiar with Pharoahe’s catalogue, as he’d leave spaces for fans to fill in the sung parts of his verse, and there were only a few of us singing the climactic moment: “whyyyyyyyyyy, why-y-y-y-eee!!”

With the last song about loss, Pharoahe’s next song would be about overcoming obstacles and survival, giving a ton of praise to Jill Scott for her hook on “Still Standing.” The more emotional song mellowed out the crowd as he let Jill Scott’s vocals play out, but Pharoahe would quickly pick the energy back up and get the crowd involved by having us cover M.O.P.’s adlibs as he performed the title track off of his ’07 album, Desire. He’d keep the crowd participation going, getting us all to sing along as he performed his hook from Styles P’s “The Life,” giving shoutouts to Rawkus Records along the way, as well as Aretha Franklin, who’s sampled in the beat.

Pharoahe would next step aside and let DJ Spictakular get some shine by chopping it up on the turntables. This would then lead into a tribute to the late Nate Dogg, as Spictakular dropped the beat to Dr. Dre’s “The Next Episode” and we all sang along to the late singer’s vocals. With perfect execution, DJ Spictakular timed it so that once the famous line “smoke weed everyday!” was sung, the beat to Pharoahe’s own collaboration with Nate Dogg, “Oh No” dropped, and the entire crowd turned up! Pharoahe visibly had fun nailing his verse on the song while leaving key parts for the fans to fill in, and there was only one song left that he could do to get an even bigger reaction: “Simon Says.”

Easily the biggest single of his career, Pharoahe smashed down the mic stand as the beat dropped to “Simon Says,” and to get an even bigger reaction, Just Blaze stepped in to rewind the track, getting everyone to jump and wave their arms when the beat dropped a second time. Pharoahe didn’t even need to spit every word to the track, as the fans were fully into the performance and filled in the words for him. This had to be the most hype moment of the entire week, as this happens to be the 4th concert reviewed on this blog in 4 days, and no moment was crazier than “Simon Says.” “Get the fuck up!!!”

While Pharoahe Monch was originally promoted as the headliner of Day 1 of the festival, Bastid’s BBQ kept to the tradition of putting more emphasis on the art of DJing rather than MCing, giving the closing slot to Jurassic 5’s DJ Nu-Mark. Skratch Bastid would shoutout all the cities represented on stage for the day, with DJs and artists from Toronto, Tokyo, The Bay Area, and New York City all having blessed the stage, and now would be Los Angeles’ turn as DJ Nu-Mark took over. He would get his set started by chopping up the Empire Strikes Back theme, and would do a dope mash-up of Eric B. & Rakim’s “Don’t Sweat The Technique” with Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth’s “T.R.O.Y.” DJ Nu-Mark would have the crowd dancing the night away as he served up a dope remix of Nelly’s “Hot In Herre,” as well as a few Michael Jackson songs, while Skratch Bastid hyped up the crowd by tossing out goodies, including his trademark Bastid’s BBQ apron and bottles of his hot sauce.

We would spend much of Nu-Mark’s set getting some late night eats on the balcony up top, where Crumbs Patties were serving up Jamaican beef patties, and also checked out the merch booth, where Skratch Bastid had t-shirts and hats commemorating all of the past Bastid’s BBQ festivals in Toronto, as well as a dope Rap City shirt by Retrokid with the original Much Music artwork from the ’90s. We would catch a bit more of DJ Nu-Mark’s set before heading out to catch the train, one highlight being how he chopped up the beginning of Gang Starr’s “Full Clip” to give RIP shoutouts to several artists, including Big L, Guru, J Dilla, and eventually landed on Nate Dogg, dropping “The Next Episode” in tribute and still getting a major reaction from the crowd, even if we had just heard it during Pharoahe Monch’s set.

Overall, this was a fun-filled celebration for all kinds of music lovers, especially those who appreciate the skill it takes to be a real DJ. Most of the DJs who hit the stage wore a Bastid’s BBQ apron because seeing them work is almost like watching a chef serve up a marvelous meal. The DJs who perform at this festival do more than simply press buttons or dance to a playlist; they all showcased different skillsets when it comes to chopping up sounds. Just Blaze highlighted this especially, pointing out at the beginning of his set that he may not be able to cut up the turntables at the same level as Skratch Bastid, but he displayed an incredible ear for sampling.

Being more of a fan of the MCing aspect of Hip-Hop myself, my only gripe is wishing that Pharoahe Monch had more time on stage. With it being so rare to see Pharoahe Monch perform north of the border, I was hoping to see more of a deep dive into his catalogue. While he appropriately gave Internal Affairs a lot of coverage and even took it back to his Organized Konfusion days, it would have been dope to see some of his newer material like “Damage,” “Bad MF,” or “Rapid Eye Movement” get performed as well. Nitpicking aside, it was still a great concert that felt warm and welcoming from beginning to end, as all good BBQ parties should.

Day 2 of Bastid’s BBQ Toronto continues with more world-renowned DJs and artists, including Dam-Funk, FS Green, Bambii, and of course Skratch Bastid himself. By the time you read this, you’ve already missed it.

Skratch Bastid will be bringing his Bastid’s BBQ to Vancouver, New York City, and Edmonton this summer. Tickets and info can be found at bastidsbbq.com!

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