Its Monday morning and by now you've heard all that there is to hear about the Drake/Jaspects/Danny! show at the Loft this past Saturday. I apologize but yeah, I had to get some me time on Sunday. You would to if you had to share space with ALL of these folks.
To say that this show was crowded is an understatement. I go to shows at the Loft very often. I've seen it empty for Slum Village and Pac Div. I've seen it ok for Killer Mike and Immortal Technique. I've seen it packed out for Little Brother and Bun B. But this past Saturday was on some other ish. From front to back the place was full. I've never seen it like that, ever.
In case you didn't know, this show sold out in 5 hours. That's some ol' Lakers vs. Cavaliers in the Finals with Beyonce singing the national anthem and Micheal Jackson performing at halftime stuff ain't it?
Well, luckily for me, I didn't have to pay. Not saying that I would not have, I'm saying as in not worry about ticket availability. Shouts out to Fadia, Jabari and Carl for looking out. It looks like you guys won big with this one. Oh yeah, shouts out to Ian Ford for doing a good job hosting the event.
Anyways, the show had its great points and not so great points. Let's start with the not so great.
Danny! is an emcee from South Carolina who my man R.E. has been cosigning for years. (R.E. also put me and some of ya'll up on Drake years ago as well). He even introduced me to him once, seemed like a pretty cool guy. Hell, so cool that when Jabari asked who I thought would be a good opener for the Drake show, I suggested him. I mean, I still like some of dude music, but this night was not a good look for him. Honestly, I kinda figured that when I saw him come on stage sippin and trippin.
Now as an emcee, you're supposed to be a little cocky. Understandable, but my man came out kinda arrogant. Talking about how he charted #8 on Billboard and how Drake only charted #38. Talk your ish playboy, but know that #38 is the guy these people came to see. Then he proceeded to let the uninterested crowd know that he wasn't too interested in them either. After stumbling through a couple of his songs (I hear that it was mainly because he was using a live band that he didn't really know that well) and proceeding to declare himself "one of the illest niggas spitting"...the Boo-Birds came out in full effect. Hell, the people even started yelling WE WANT DRAKE on his ass. Damn, Ricky Hatton, the Bulls and Danny! all took L's this night.
Now, if you visit this site often you already know we're Pro-Jaspects around these parts. So when they came out to perform, I was expecting nothing less than greatness. As usual, they deliver. Though I must say, they came out looking a little tight and nervous at first. Hell, I would too if the dude before me got booed and heard the crowd ye'll WE WANT DRAKE! But these dudes are seasoned vets. If they can win over Bill Cosby and Wynton Marsalis, a room of loud youngsters ain't nothing. Needless to say, they won the crowd back and saved the show.
I was really glad to see them do well, I know for sure they made some new fans this night.
As for Drake. The man did his thing. Really, he could do no wrong. He had the crowd (especially the girls, young and grown) eating out of the palm of his hand. Especially when he got his LL on and started talking about running bath water and foot massages. He was really laying it on thick for a minute there.
But watching him perform reminded me of the last time I saw Nas in concert. When you have songs that the crowd already knows all of the words to, you really don't have to do nothing on stage, except not fuck up. So, they guy didn't do any back flips or antics, he just went up there and did his job.
To this day, I still don't know what in the hell this man did to get such a large and loyal fan base this quick. Granted, yes, he had mixtapes out before So Far Gone but damn. Hell, at times even his manager looked out in the crowd in astonishment because ALL of the people knew the words to EVERY song. Guess he didn't have to "do" anything but drop dope music. Especially songs like "Successful" that Trey Songz joined him to perform.
This post is getting a little long so I'm gonna go ahead and wrap it up. For you celeb lovers out there, Teyanna Taylor (somebody please tell me what this chick does, seriously, not playing, I really don't know, for real), Jermaine Dupri, R.City and Usher were a few of the folks in attendance. Oh yeah, my nig Dow Jones of Tha Bizness was in the house as well. I got invited to go into the VIP but I figured it was gonna be even more packed back there than it was out in the crowd. Plus, I didn't feel like fighting my way back to my spot. I was in a fighting mood all day and I was really trying to avoid conflict on this evening. Almost didn't make it. Glad I did though. Apologies to all of the people I cussed out for bumping into me all night, really, I'm sorry. Extra apologies to the folks who invited me out to Stankonia for the Mama's Mustache cookout, hate that I missed that one.
But here is a gallery of the photos I took of the show. Enjoy. Oh yeah, visit TSS, Writer's Block, IFUXWITIT and The Kaos Effect for video of the show.
And for real, leave me some feedback on the photos. I'm trying to get better at it.
3 comments:
Very nice post. I felt like I was back in there! And you had nice, clear pics for every scene, damn near told the story themselves. I'm no photographer, but I think they look good.
Love it!!!
I wanted to make it back to the A to see the show, but I couldn't so thanks for the honest wrap-up.
The pictures are great Maurice. You got some really good shots. I didn't see any of him with Usher though? What happened?
Post a Comment