The mission is "to try to bring hip hop back to the way it was, for the community," as said by King Tech, one half of the dynamic duo that helm the now-international Wake Up Show. The flava is the Wake Up Show Tour, a coast to coast hip hop extravaganza featuring raps' brightest superstars in a large scale setting rare for the genre.

The tour set it off in July at Hollywood's Palladium -- a venue notorious for avoiding rap-oriented events -- to a crowd of easily over a thousand. The card included a massive MC battle (won by Chicago's Juice), Organized Konfusion, Kam, The Jungle Brothers, The Whoridas, The Air Force Crew, and 16 members of the Wu Tang Clan including Raekwon, Meth, Rza, Gza, Ghostface, and Inspector Deck. Even the "I Missed 3 Three Point Shots Late In The Game and Screwed The Lakers Outta The Finals" kid Kobe Bryant took the mic at one point to flow.

Suffice it to say, with a card like this the place was packed to the hilt -- the seats that had been carefully placed all over the main floor of the Palladium were almost all being stood upon, the aisles were filled to overflowing, and almost every spare inch of floor space had someone bobbing their head to the sounds.

Organized Konfusion was a high point of the show, stepping on stage to total darkness with only the beams from headband mounted flashlights to illuminate. As through much of the show, the sound on the mics was nearly impossible to hear, and they were unable to do any of their earliest material thanks to problems with their old record label, but Monche and Poetry flipped it in an ethusiastic fashion that was a real audience pleaser.

The Jungle Brothers, in khaki fatugues, walked about the stage with the confidence of veterans. They did pieces of some of their most memorable cuts as well as some very tight songs off the new Raw Deluxe. The Whoridas as well met the fans with a great level of enthusiasm, obviously happy to play for such a big crowd. But it was Kam who stole the show, in his spotless white t-shirt, when he leapt onto the stage, a ball of Islamic energy, and got the entire auditorium on its feet screaming "whoop whoop!" As well, Kam favored the crowd with west coast favorites like "Peace Treaty" and "Y'all Don't Hear me Dough."

There were no incidents of violence at all, due to vigilant security and a general exhaustion over not being able to enjoy a good show. Even as some LA troublemakers threw up signs towards the stage, the acts took it in stride and Tech and his partner Sway urged the crowd to remember the peaceful vibe everyone wanted to set. The RZA even tried to mirror the signs being thrown at him, before unveiling the new Wu-Tang hand sign (both thumbs crossed with all fingers together set at a 45 degree angle) that almost every person in the massive auditorium had in the air at his request. It was quite a spectacle.

"The shows are there," said Sway, "because we wanted to show the media that we aren't the animals they often portray us to be." The multicultural crowd -- predominately of African descent, but heavily representing all ethnicities -- danced, shouted ("Where the southside riders at? Whoop whoop whoop!"), and cheered as they got a show unlike any the Southland had seen outside of money grubbing, multi-genre Summerjams and in smaller versions like LA's infamous Unity.

Shows are set to continue through October, with the tour landing August 27th in Las Vegas with the Boot Camp Click and the Jungle Brothers confirmed at presstime, then on to a probably Bay Area oriented bill August 31st in San Francisco, September 19th in Atlanta, and the final shows at unconfirmed dates in Chicago and finally, New York City. In that the Wake Up Show is being played, every Saturday night, in the Bay, Los Angeles, Chicago, two other major US cities and at least two major overseas markets (London being one), Sway and Tech seem poised to take their fundamentalist hip hop movement to your town real soon.