The empire strikes a second time: Shabak S. united and blew the crowd into the air

More than ten thousand people came to Live Park to salute the founding fathers of Zionist hip-hop, who lay on the fence when Tuna and Plotnik were still in elementary school.

In this powerful display of power, Shabak S sounded excellent, presented an impressive show and proved once again that this is one of the best concert bands that were here

Assaf Nevo

25/09/2022

Sunday, September 25, 2022, 09:20 Updated: 09:24

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Mookie broadcasting a tribute to the beehive as part of the 70th celebrations (photo: Reuven Castro, editing: Jordana Avodi-Fox)

Good bands don't really break up, they stop and in the future come back, separate and finally reunite, because the music their members made together wins over everything, the ego wars, the desire to succeed alone, the chance to earn more money instead of sharing it with the friends, even the huge hits they issued in their solo careers .

No matter what a huge star Gidi Gov was, how many classics Yoni Rechter composed, and how many successes the other members had, in the end they showed up for Beehive reunions.

No matter how many years Shalom Hanoch and Ariel Zilber did not meet, in the end Tammuz got together.

Even a great band like Shabak S, whose members' egos and Mookie's successes as a vocalist have separated them so many times in the past, always come back in the end, reunite, and release another kicking protest song ("Everybody's doing it"), and bomb with great force in some park In front of thousands of fans, who grew up listening to the "banana bender" and "get stuck in the trumpet" and now they are already parents of children, who one evening turn 16, waving their hands in the air, shouting in chorus "Shoom!

Bumps!

Parts!

And Sachteyn!" and once again fly in the air from "Empire" and "There will be an explosion". Because with all due respect to the stars and contemporary hits, the nostalgia for who we were in our youth is always the hottest commodity on the market.

Shabak S unites, yesterday (Photo: Omer Kidar)

The audience at the Zappa Live Park in Rashlat last night proved that, despite the current wave of successes experienced by Israeli hip-hop, they know and love to pay a lot of respect to the founders of the genre. Unlike Alon Hazan, who went with the younger generation last night, they chose the elders of the tribe. More than a million viewers came to the union show of the Shin Bet, that when their debut album was released in 1995, Ravid Plotnik was seven years old, Tona was eleven, Subliminal, who for some reason calls himself the godfather of the scene, was only 15 years old - and Shanan Street had not yet formed Hadeg Nahash.

All of these, and especially the fish, owe a lot to the Shin Bet, who got out of their structure and lay on the fences of Galglatz and the mainstream media, so that others would have a much more paved way to spread the gospel of rap. When talking about Zionist hip hop, Shebak S were there first, fought Everyone is in the golden microphone war, and they deserve the premiere.

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Shabak S unites, yesterday (Photo: Omer Kidar)

Shabak S was and remains one of the best concert groups that arose in Israel. In local terms, this is a kind of stadium band, almost on the level of Mashina. Their base is a deadly rhythm section (James and Davidi) with a bouncy beat with a heavy sound, two guitarists who play riffs of Metal (Floppy Bee and Filoni) and the four horsemen of the apocalypse on the microphones: Moki Dee, Hami, Miro and Nimi Nim, four rappers, each of whom has his own voice colors and fluo styles, but they complement each other phenomenally and sound like an MC monster firing blasts in four voices The sources of inspiration are bands like the Beastie Boys, Buddy Count and Rage Against the Machine.

They were joined last night by Trio Brass, who performed songs such as "The State in Flames", "Beg the straw" and "Fly like a bird" and less brilliantly in "Drop the Bomb";

A keyboardist (Tomer Ben Ari, brother of) who gave another tone to the sound;

standard bearers who came on stage with the band's flags;

and dancers who were unnecessary.

The guest of honor was the super-producer Yossi Payne, the Israeli Dr. Dera, who produced three of their five studio albums and shaped their musical path. This time he joined the "Ganja Song" playing a guitar with a distinct oriental sound. The one who stood out in his absence was the great Fishy, And his place was taken by "Get stuck in the trumpet" my father-in-law (a secular renegade) who gave a good imitation of the original.

Shabak S unites, yesterday (Photo: Omer Kidar)

Shabak S presented a power show of hip-hop, metal-rap and reggae, with a large amount of party hits, poignant protest songs, ganja hymns and self-belief anthems. 29 songs spread over two and a quarter hours of a powerful show experience, with music Excellent and a show ahead, with the four emcees washing the stage in waves like the attack of the team and activating the audience, but in moderation. They passed these tests, the musical test and the show test, easily, as expected of them.

An equally important test was the pathos test. The easiest At events of this type, it is difficult to leave a boomer who presses too hard on the nostalgia glands or bores the audience with forgotten battle legacies. They succeeded in this too: the conversations with the audience were short and measured and there were not too many attempts to operate in the style of the Hoy team at the hotel. There was a moment that lasted about ten minutes, in which We were seen on stage dressed from head to toe in an enthusiastic red suit, which may have been appropriate somewhere in the distant nineties, but as mentioned he got rid of it quite quickly.

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Shabak S unites, yesterday (Photo: Omer Kidar)

Another point that could have clouded the show is the stardom of Mookie, the only one of the eight who really has a significant front solo career outside of the band (Filoni has a successful career mainly behind the scenes).

It is true that he is the most charismatic, the most handsome and also took off his shirt so that all the girls in the audience could see his muscles, and some would say that he is also the best presenter of the four singers and certainly the most experienced of them all in terms of mileage on stages in recent years.

However, to everyone's happiness, this is not Eran Zahavi who asks for a room by himself, but a team player, who does everything so as not to steal the show for the rest and knows how to balance his place in the hierarchy.

That is, first among equals, and it is clear that he is a star without having to mark himself as such.

Do Shabak S's songs pass the test of time? From the audience's point of view, it is clear that they do. Objectively, a nice balance is maintained between the high school songs from the first album (probably the album I have listened to the most times in my life), which are flooded with self-praise, apparent violence and severe misogyny , which today would not be on the radio, and their protest songs, which came in the later stages of their careers and turn out to be super-temporary, such as "There is no respect", "Lashbat Lakum", "Fly like a bird", "Messiah" and "What was was was"

. Shabak S will reunite?

Maybe in a year, maybe two years, maybe more, only they know, but the consolation lies in the fact that good bands like them never really break up.

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• Shabak S.

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• Nimrod Reshef

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