Wu-Tang Clan & Nas Carry PK Sound Across the NY State of Mind Tour

Wu-Tang Clan, Nas and Busta Rhymes carried a PK Sound Trinity robotic line source system – with T10 elements and T218 intelligent subwoofers – across the 25-date NY State of Mind Tour, one of the first major U.S. tours to run the platform end to end.

The routing ran through amphitheatres and arenas of wildly different geometry before concluding in October at the Hollywood Bowl, and the show itself was unusually demanding: a continuous, tag-team format in which the artists used collaborations to hand off between sets, producing a three-hour performance with no natural reset points.

Hip-hop is a genre that punishes an imprecise system. The music lives in the relationship between a deep, sustained low end and the intelligibility of the vocal sitting on top of it, and two generations of lyricists trading verses leaves nowhere for a smeared midrange to hide. Every room on the run needed to be answered on its own terms – near-field and far-field, seats and lawn.

“It gives you total control once it's in the air and in position to be able to shape and contour to the room.”

— Ralph Mastrangelo, PK Alliance

Front of house for Nas and Busta Rhymes was handled by Peter Dottin, with Justin Tolar on monitors, the pair mixing the show from beginning to end each night. Production manager Chad Fuller specified the system. RZA, the Wu-Tang producer and de facto bandleader, made a habit of visiting front of house during soundcheck virtually every day to review tracks and confirm the show matched his intent for the audience.

Mixing a catalogue this well known brings its own kind of pressure – and its own advantages. “I already know the music,” Dottin told Mix of his work with Nas. “A lot of times I know what phrases he's going to pause on, so I can even set up my delays.” The live discipline, he added, is simpler to state than to execute: “Your job as the live engineer is basically to make it happen now – as it happens!”

“I'd like to thank everyone on the PK Sound team that helped us achieve major and memorable moments throughout the NY State of Mind Tour.”

— Peter Dottin, FOH engineer

The run stands as an early demonstration of the argument PK has made since: that a system able to be reshaped in the air, rather than re-rigged on the floor, is the practical answer to a tour that plays a different room every night.