Kanye West, Rhianna, N.E.R.D., and Lupe Fiasco Light Up The Garden

It’s 11:43am on Wednesday, May 14th. I got in from the concert around 2:30am and I was f’n tired. Since Sunday I’ve logged 1,300 miles on trains between Amtrak and LIRR, and I walked around the city all…fucking…day yesterday, not to mention being on my feet for 85 of the 90 minutes ‘Ye rocked.

Anyhoo, stupid dope phat mad gangsta props to my fellow Alumnah writers who did a spectacular job holding the site down while I was gone. Particular shouts go out to Tyrone Biggums, who has stepped his game up immensely–which is doubly difficult when you consider he’s functionally illiterate with a slight touch of Down Syndrome.

Here’s the “Trying not to be a Stan” review, but if you want the Stan-tastic review, make sure you check out It Ain’t That Serious this evening for all the adulation.

Let’s rock…and roll…all day long…Sweet Susie.

At the risk of “ethering” whatever “street cred” I might have inexplicably acquired during my illustrious tenure here at the Alumnah, my concert going experience before last nite included two WBLI Summer Jam shows in 2000 (headliner: Enrique Iglesias, best performer: Shaggy, who I was there to see: 2Ge+her) and 2004 (headliner: Avril Levigne, best performer: tie between Hanson & JC Chasez, who I was there to see: this girl Jodi with whom I was in a highly useless dating scenario)–and as the parentheses proved, they were top 40 radio shows. The other concert I saw was–and take a deep breath and prepare to roll your eyes and go, “This nigga right here is mad gay, son”–the Backstreet Boys. I don’t give a fuck, I had a great time at that show, so put that in your “piff” and smoke it.

Anyway, last nite was my first rap concert, and the Rap Concert Cliches varied:

A- Lots. And Lots. Of Young. White. Kids. Which I didn’t mind, bee tee dubs. Even if they were there cuz they liked Kanye’s singles, or even worse, N.E.R.D., at least they were getting an eclectic range of good music–which I’m hoping will seep into their brains and help them choose life over Lil’ Wayne.

B- Weeeeeeeeeeed Smoke. My friend DTMJ was livid that people were smoking weed inside a concert, to the point where he actually narc’d on the offenders to security. Nobody did anything, but he got over it eventually. I didn’t mind so much even tho’ I normally frown upon drug users. Truth be told, weed smoke doesn’t bother me nearly as much as cigarette smoke–word to the scruffy hipster dude 2 rows in front of me who was smoking a cigarette for half of ‘Ye’s set. I hope he went home and had the liquor shits.

C- The Punctuality of the Artists. Lupe Fiasco went on promptly at 7:30pm, right when the show was supposed to start. I’ve read about so many horror stories where artists keep fans waiting for hours and hours (*cough*Lauren Hill*cough*), so I was very happy to discover that there would be no such fudgery on this nite.

D- The Dress Code. Apparently, the dress code was: “Tight, Neon, and Goofy”. I’m fairly confident that this time next year, Kanye is gonna look back and giggle at how many people started dressing like extras from Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon because he did it first. Awesome.

E- Chants! Chants! Chants! Aside from N.E.R.D., the artists refrained from stuff like “Throw your hands in  the air! And wave ‘em like you just don’t care! and If you think Rey is awesome let me here you say ‘Oh Yeah’!”. Pharrell did encourage people to say “Hell Yeah!” tho’, but I didn’t cuz Fuck Pharrell.

***

Like I said, the show opened up on time, and the Glowing in the Dark commenced.

Part I- Lupe Fiasco & the First & Fifteenth Crew.

Lupe hit the stage proudly brandishing his freshly earned Gold plaque. I thought that was pretty cool to see and I was happy for Lupe. “Superstar” undoubtedly propelled The Cool to it’s Gold status, and even tho’ the YWKs (young white kids) probably just liked the chorus, the lyrics were dope and I’m okay with the “crossover”. Anyway, Lupe had great energy and his flow was very close to how his voice sounded on the record, which was good. Way too many (50 Cent) artists can’t (Nas) recreate the sound of their records (Diddy) and it can be annoying listening to them shout. Lupe had a DJ on stage, his boy Gemini/Gemstone serving as his hypeman, Matthew Santos sang, as did…um…those other 2 girls. Lupe’s rendition of “Go Go Gadget Flow” was great, and dude’s breath control was outstanding, rapping at full speed for a good 30 seconds–which is pretty f’n tough to do. What I dug about Lupe’s set was that he didn’t end on the big single, the aforementioned “Superstar”, but rather one of my favorite cuts off of Food & Liquor, “Daydreams”. The whole F’N'F crew was out in force, with Lupe & Gem (who is truly, truly, truly outrageous) jumping up and down and yelling out the lyrics and completely losing their shit. A great opening act, and as a Lupe Fiasco fan from the first spin of F&L, hearing Madison Square Garden chant a boisterous “Lupe! Lupe! Lupe!” was very, very…wait for it…Cool. Lupe’s set earns him a solid “A”, just a great old school rap performance with minimal-yet-effective lighting and musical flourishes.

Part II- N.E.R.D.

Okay, first and foremost, I hate Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo. I really do. I mean, even tho’ I’ve enjoyed some of the songs they’ve produced, I’ve found the majority of their musical output to be really fuckin’ pretentious. Matter ‘fact, It’s going to be my goal to get people to start referring to them as “The Inept Tunes”. (take your time with it). Okay, that being said (wait, plus Pharrell was responsible for motherfucking “Hollaback Girl”, right? Just remember that when I dole out my final grade because I will be dropping them a whole letter grade becausse of that horrible, horrible fact), I wasn’t too familiar with the N.E.R.D. catalogue so I was at a disadvantage. They hit their singles, “Brain”, “Rock Star”, “Lap Dance”, did some songs I’ve never heard of, and then did a cover of (I think) a White Stripes song–sorry, I’m not really sure. As much as I wanted to hate the whole thing, the N.E.R.D. rockband thing was actually pretty cool. They did that “Spazz Out” song and Pharrell did that little kick dance that kids do to Swing/Ska music, and that was admittedly neat. The Garden really did spazz out for Skateboard P and Company, and that did melt my Anti-Pharrell heart juuuust a bit. N.E.R.D. put on a good show and the people that were there to see them were obviously satisfied, so props to them. Star Trak’s main crew has earned a “C” rating. (Yes, it would’ve been a “B”, but the “Hollaback” thing cannot be forgotten. Ever.)

Part III- Rhianna

Sad to say, I was actually more familiar with Rhianna’s catelogue than N.E.R.D.’s. Rhianna’s set was like this bastard version of the Wachowski Brothers’ (seriously, is Speed Racer’s flopping a surprise? It looked like seizure-inducing crap from jumpstreet) take on a Robert Palmer video. Lots of abstract 80s grey and neon lights served as the background to Rhianna’s S’n'M lookin’ costumes for herself and her background dancers and singers. Anyway, Rhianna did her big singles–The Sean Paul one, “Unfaithful”, “S.O.S.”, “Please Don’t Stop The Music”–but she also did a couple of covers that got the crowd going, which included that Beanie Man “Sim Simma” song, and a rousing version of Lauren Hill’s “That Thing…”. She closed the show with “Umbrella” (ella ella ella ay ay ay), and the first surprise guest of the nite came out: Chris Brown. I imagine this was a really happy surprise for people who give a shit about Chris Brown, but I am not amongst that group. I know my E-I-C, Phuque Daddy Dollaz has cosigned Chris Brown, but dude is such a vocal lightweight that it’s not even funny. Hearing him live just proves that fact. David Archuleta > Chris Brown, and I’m prepared to engage in fisticuffs over this. Sooo, all things considered, Rhianna gets a “B+” rating. She sang well live and had just enough cute little winks and crowd-pleasing stuff to make her set fun and not just an annoying buffer before Mr. West.

Part IV- Kanye West

This is actually gonna be a pretty tough part to write because I have yet to fully formulate my opinion on the show. Let’s just work thru it together, shall we? The set was awesome. It was an elaborate spaceship/alien planet kinda thing, and it served as the backdrop for the story behind Mr. West’s show. He was searching throughout the universe for creativity, and crashed landed on said alien planet. The saga went from him crashing and, through his songs, he eventually makes it back home. The music was provided by a live band, DJ, vocoder guy, and 2 back up singers–and they were super-duper on point. I’m pretty sure ‘Ye messed up a couple of lyrics here and there, but I didn’t mind because he adlibbed and covered up the flubs. His set list contained all the singles off of Graduation and Late Registration, as well as 3 out of the 4 from The College Dropout. Kanye’s voice and breath control were also very good, especially when you consider that he was running around, jumping, and screaming. That’s the other funny part. Because of the intense nature of Kanye as a performer, at times during the show I felt like I wasn’t necessarily watching a singalong with the artist, but rather a man working through everything he’s encountered over the last decade. Kanye was animated, passionate–almost like he was in the arena by himself, fighting wars both internally and externally–working his way through the doubters, the critics, the cynics, his perceived arrogance, his own horrible insecurity, and the untimely passing of his mother. In a lot of ways, it was almost an exorcism–a cathartic, frenetic, “You will feel what I’m saying!” expulsion of the little things and the big things that conspire to hold us back from ascending to our highest levels. Anyway, the crowd was in the palm of Kanye’s hand, as the biggest ‘Ye stan on the interweb, it was fucking amazing to see 18,000 people’s arms swaying in the arena, either in the form of the Rocafella diamond, or just general hand-waviness. Looking down on the crowd, it more resembled the waves of the ocean or tall grass rippling in the wind rather than a Rap Concert. My favorite numbers were “Through The Wire”, “The Good Life”, and the epic version of “Stronger”. “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” had the crowd singing and swaying, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that Kanye included his verse from “Get ‘Em High”. The main “Space Voyage” part of the show ended, and ‘Ye came out to do an encore of “Touch The Sky”, which featured Lupe Fiasco coming from backstage to rock out (rap out?) with his Chi-Town Brudda. Lupe’s appearance was a surprise because I had read in other reviews that Kanye had no special guests come out with him. Speaking of other reviews, that was the other reason why I’m not as gushy over the show as you’d probably have expected. I felt like I received spoilers of what was to happen, so when something like “Hey Mama” being followed up by a cover of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” (which was fucking awesome, bee tee dubs) happened, I knew it was coming. It’s not the fault of the reviewers cuz I went hunting for them, but that still played a role. Anyway, the show was awesome–and it’s no longer debatable as to who the #1 artist in the world is. There is seriously nobody in the world of music seeing Kanye West right now–and please don’t disagree because you’ll just look foolish. Kanye’s set gets an emphatic “A+” rating.

***

Call Reynolds, Cuz it’s a Wrap.

There ya go, kidlets. My review. Like I said above, a more thoughtful look at Mr. West’s part of the show will be taken over at It Ain’t That Serious later on today, most likely this evening.

As always, comments, questions, critiques, and other stizzuff can be left below in the Dr. Donda West (1) Memorial Comments Section.

Thanks for tuning in,

–Rey.I.Is

(1) Your little boy is something special, Dr. West.