This was reported on SOHH yesterday
Audience loves Nas, boos others
By Joe La Puma
Published: Monday, April 25, 2005
On a rainy and cold Saturday night, fans of comedy and the hip-hop community came to Gampel Pavilion to see a number of performers. Although the arena seemed less packed than the previous two years, according to concert chairperson Rachelle Killeen the show had good ticket sales throughout the day.
The comedy aspect of the show featuring three comedians from "Chappelle's Show" seemingly disappointed the crowd, which was not afraid to voice its displeasure. Marina Franklin the first comic to take the stage cut her set short due to the boos she was facing from the unfavorable crowd
While most people were looking forward to seeing comedian Charlie Murphy, who in the past year has had viewers in stitches over his stories involving celebrities like Prince and the late Rick James also failed to truly win over the crowd. Murphy fought back calling the nay-sayers "cockroaches" along with other choice words and experienced some laughter here and there but failed to live up to his role on "Chappelle's Show."
Bill Burr, the other comedian who performed, got the most positive response from the crowd. Burr who mocked people from the suburbs portraying themselves as gangsters and joked about how different things would be if a black Pope had been elected. Laughter reached its high point during Burr's performance and most agreed that he stole the comedic show.
Even though Nas was supposed to headline the concert, traffic held up rapper Fabulous causing Nas to go on first. After Nas's set, Fabolous took the stage at approximately 12:30 a.m.
Rapping to a depleted crowd that at times seemed life-less, he tried to make the best of a bad situation. Performing hits like "Ya'll Cant Deny It," "Can't Let You Go," "Keepin' It Gangsta" and his latest single "Baby," Fab and his Street Fam clique tried to involve the part of the crowd who had not headed for the exits yet. Fab also claimed that he was experiencing technical difficulties throughout the performance. Although Nas may not have performed after Fabulous, there was no confusion to who the headliner of the concert was.
Rocking an olive green shirt with an outline of Africa on it Nas took the stage and began his set bringing fans through his career one hit at a time. Performing his traditional records like "If I Ruled The World," "Hate Me Now," "Represent" and "It Ain't Hard To Tell," Nas took fans back through hip-hop history. He also did a number of his recent hits like "Get Down," "Thiefs Theme" and "Just a Moment."
Nas told the crowd during his set, "I'll never stop doing this sh**, each one of ya'll like a different record for a different reason."
When Nas asked the crowd what song they wanted to hear, the crowd began voicing their thirst for Nas to perform his classic diss record "Ether," which he directed toward fellow rap juggernaut Jay-Z back in 2001. Although he hesitated at first, claiming he has "moved on" and does not do that song anymore, Nas finally gave into the crowd who were chanting "Ether!" at the time when Gampel Pavillion was at it's highest energy level. As the gunshot effects that begins the song came on, fans erupted showing their excitement for the record.
After expressing his appreciation to the crowd's craving for "Ether," Nas mentioned his recent beef with rapper 50 Cent, exclaiming to the crowd "We got a new monkey ... In December I got a monkey to crush, I think ya'll know who he is," and then went on to yell the G-Unit slogan and stopped himself. After the concert, Nas talked about the diss records that have been circulating in recent years and the battle he and Jay-Z brought to the forefront of hip-hop.
"What we did was a battle, there still has not been no diss records, just sh** talking, there's nothing to it, what Jada, Sheek and Joe have done is cool, but I guess our battle was the one that started it," he said.
When he referred to Jadakiss, Sheek Louch and Fat Joe, he was talking about the recent diss records those artists put out directed towards 50. Nas also got a rise out of the crowd when during his song "I Can," he referred to R.Kelly as a rapist.
Besides hearing an excited emotion from the crowd in response to controversy, Nas also got deep with fans during his performance of "One Mic." Borrowing a Phil Collins intro, Nas went into the song that left the majority of the audience holding their cell phone lights up.
"Nas carried the crowd through his storied career, highlighting numerous hits from all his albums," said Brian Ferrara who traveled from New York to see the rapper.
Judging from this stage in his career, Nas will go down as one of the most respected and poetic lyricists to ever pick up the mic. He said he is content at this point in his career.
"It's better now, back then was good too, now it's fun, it's cool, it's a better feeling I fought through the fire ... Now I'm just coasting, I call it the second wind, the next few years are the second wind," he said.
Audience loves Nas, boos others
By Joe La Puma
Published: Monday, April 25, 2005
On a rainy and cold Saturday night, fans of comedy and the hip-hop community came to Gampel Pavilion to see a number of performers. Although the arena seemed less packed than the previous two years, according to concert chairperson Rachelle Killeen the show had good ticket sales throughout the day.
The comedy aspect of the show featuring three comedians from "Chappelle's Show" seemingly disappointed the crowd, which was not afraid to voice its displeasure. Marina Franklin the first comic to take the stage cut her set short due to the boos she was facing from the unfavorable crowd
While most people were looking forward to seeing comedian Charlie Murphy, who in the past year has had viewers in stitches over his stories involving celebrities like Prince and the late Rick James also failed to truly win over the crowd. Murphy fought back calling the nay-sayers "cockroaches" along with other choice words and experienced some laughter here and there but failed to live up to his role on "Chappelle's Show."
Bill Burr, the other comedian who performed, got the most positive response from the crowd. Burr who mocked people from the suburbs portraying themselves as gangsters and joked about how different things would be if a black Pope had been elected. Laughter reached its high point during Burr's performance and most agreed that he stole the comedic show.
Even though Nas was supposed to headline the concert, traffic held up rapper Fabulous causing Nas to go on first. After Nas's set, Fabolous took the stage at approximately 12:30 a.m.
Rapping to a depleted crowd that at times seemed life-less, he tried to make the best of a bad situation. Performing hits like "Ya'll Cant Deny It," "Can't Let You Go," "Keepin' It Gangsta" and his latest single "Baby," Fab and his Street Fam clique tried to involve the part of the crowd who had not headed for the exits yet. Fab also claimed that he was experiencing technical difficulties throughout the performance. Although Nas may not have performed after Fabulous, there was no confusion to who the headliner of the concert was.
Rocking an olive green shirt with an outline of Africa on it Nas took the stage and began his set bringing fans through his career one hit at a time. Performing his traditional records like "If I Ruled The World," "Hate Me Now," "Represent" and "It Ain't Hard To Tell," Nas took fans back through hip-hop history. He also did a number of his recent hits like "Get Down," "Thiefs Theme" and "Just a Moment."
Nas told the crowd during his set, "I'll never stop doing this sh**, each one of ya'll like a different record for a different reason."
When Nas asked the crowd what song they wanted to hear, the crowd began voicing their thirst for Nas to perform his classic diss record "Ether," which he directed toward fellow rap juggernaut Jay-Z back in 2001. Although he hesitated at first, claiming he has "moved on" and does not do that song anymore, Nas finally gave into the crowd who were chanting "Ether!" at the time when Gampel Pavillion was at it's highest energy level. As the gunshot effects that begins the song came on, fans erupted showing their excitement for the record.
After expressing his appreciation to the crowd's craving for "Ether," Nas mentioned his recent beef with rapper 50 Cent, exclaiming to the crowd "We got a new monkey ... In December I got a monkey to crush, I think ya'll know who he is," and then went on to yell the G-Unit slogan and stopped himself. After the concert, Nas talked about the diss records that have been circulating in recent years and the battle he and Jay-Z brought to the forefront of hip-hop.
"What we did was a battle, there still has not been no diss records, just sh** talking, there's nothing to it, what Jada, Sheek and Joe have done is cool, but I guess our battle was the one that started it," he said.
When he referred to Jadakiss, Sheek Louch and Fat Joe, he was talking about the recent diss records those artists put out directed towards 50. Nas also got a rise out of the crowd when during his song "I Can," he referred to R.Kelly as a rapist.
Besides hearing an excited emotion from the crowd in response to controversy, Nas also got deep with fans during his performance of "One Mic." Borrowing a Phil Collins intro, Nas went into the song that left the majority of the audience holding their cell phone lights up.
"Nas carried the crowd through his storied career, highlighting numerous hits from all his albums," said Brian Ferrara who traveled from New York to see the rapper.
Judging from this stage in his career, Nas will go down as one of the most respected and poetic lyricists to ever pick up the mic. He said he is content at this point in his career.
"It's better now, back then was good too, now it's fun, it's cool, it's a better feeling I fought through the fire ... Now I'm just coasting, I call it the second wind, the next few years are the second wind," he said.
