which also featured a particularly forceful performance by Rhymesayers Entertainment mainstay P.O.S.

Yet even before that group's early evening show (they played around 5 p.m.), other longstanding hip-hop collectives proved that major dues were (and are still being) paid.

Sadly, Jerry Leiber isn't the only great songwriter to pass away today. Nick Ashford, who with his wife and musical partner Valerie Simpson penned some of the mightiest classics in the Motown songbook, also died Monday, of complications from throat cancer. He was 69. (Several sources insist he was 70, but he was born May 4, 1942.)

Ashford & Simpson, who were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002, began their career in the mid-'60s, initially gaining notice by crafting hits for Aretha Franklin ("Cry Like a Baby"), the 5thhear Midnight Marauders from A Tribe Called Quest, Paid in Full from Rakim, Boogie Down Productions' Criminal Minded, Snoop Dogg's Doggystyle, The Great Adventures of Slick Rick and Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), all by the original performers with very few absences (Ol' Dirty Bastard is excused).

This year, the four-date touring festival, which kicks off Aug. 20 at San Manuel Amphitheater in Devore, aims to match that feat by leading with a set that many wished had happened last year: The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, one of only two hip-hop albums to ever win the Grammy for album of the year, performed in full by its author.

How does the rest of the bill stack up against last year's? No slight against those other staples, but I'll take this