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Kings of the South

Joey

As I've intermittently noted, life in St. Louis is hard for a hip-hop head: There are few concerts of interest; we don't get to see Common on a Thursday night just because, for example. The two rap radio stations that we have cannot play enough Lil' Wayne and Gorilla Zoe and Akon. Every song that isn't immediately identifiable sounds the same, and it all sounds like disposable southern something. The next time a radio station plays a dancehall song will be the first. And, this is a city of driving, so street life--not, you know, "street life," but the energy that comes with pedestrians walking around--that recalls hip-hop's roots, hip-hop's inclusiveness, and hip-hop's ethos is largely absent. You don't really bop down the block taking in city life with the earphones bumpin'. I guess what I'm saying is that St. Louis is not New York.

There are hip-hop moments, though. Like the time I went to the Apple store and overheard two of the ~~salespeople~~ geniuses talking about Jay Dee. Or the time that I went to the sports bar that Nelly owns. (OK, so it's a stretch.) In general, though, St. Louis enjoys enough atmospheric hip-hop elements--a regional rap sound (my derrty!), a sizable black community--to attract some bigger name rappers when they tour. As such, and starved for an authentic hip-hop experience, I saw Ludacris and T.I. at Saint Louis University on Thursday night. Nothing says Jesuit school like the chorus from "Game Got Switched."

As you might recall, the last time I took in a St. Louis rap concert, the results were underwhelming. But as well chronicled, that largely owed to the audience and the dissonance of David Banner appearing at Washington University. My evening with Atlanta's best-known hip-hop emissaries since Outkast became fashion models was a chance for St. Louis rap redemption. It would be a night of hip-hop reminiscent of the hours I used to spend at Madison Square Garden or at Jones Beach losing my voice. Were I still living in New York, I don't think I would have paid money to see T.I., a rapper whose best albums are still inconsistent and toward the upper end of mediocre, but desperate times call for desperate measures. So I went to the show.

Upon spending enough time in St. Louis, someone transplanted from a real place, like New York or Chicago, comes to realize that this is a city of limited means and unrealistic aspirations. Most places close around 10; few movies go on after 9:30; too many stores aren't open on Saturday or Sunday or both. Nightclubs and sushi restaurants and trendy spots would very much like to be on par with their analogs in those real cities, only they're not. They're worse. Of course, that doesn't stop them from charging covers, attracting douche bags who dress like Sisqo's entourage, and pricing the mediocre drinks and food too high. That the covers are $5, the douche bags second-rate, and the price of a night out still relatively low makes this yearning sort of cute, but nonetheless tacky. And this is how pretty much everything feels if you're young, single, and used to a true metropolitan experience. Rap concerts, sure enough, are no different.

The people at this concert were effing weird. And when I write "weird," let me give you some context: I go to a fair number of concerts. It's one of my favorite activities. I go all over and encounter all kinds of folks. I've spent an evening with the Roots in a casino amidst Atlantic City's finest unpleasantness. I've rushed from the airport to St. Andrew's in Detroit so that I could stand in the back holding my luggage just to avoid missing any of Common or Slum Village. I've waited until dawn in the middle of a field in Tennessee among drug users hoping to see Kanye West. I've stood alongside vomiting ecstasy addicts at Lollapalooza. I once saw a woman hit her infant child at a Raekwon show. I've seen pimps, hoes, players, johns, tricks, marks, mark-ass tricks, trick-ass marks, skeezers, skanks, skig-scags, and scallywhops. I've seen a lot. But I had never been to a concert in St. Louis.

First, the women. Look, ladies, we get it: you have a crush on T.I. You think he's cute. And you are excited to be going to the concert. It's a special event, a special night. A night to be commemorated. Plus, all your friends are getting gussied up, and you, too, want to look right for the fellas. It's not so hard to understand. But here's the thing--the concert is not the club. And the club is not the strip club. So when you show up looking like they forced you to check your pole at the door, it's kind of bizarre. And depressing. Further, I'm sorry to be mean, but most of you really can't and shouldn't be wearing dresses that tight and that short. The audience looked a lot like this:

Not only that, but many of the women so clad were drunk and falling all over the place. In fairness, drinking for, say, four hours is a long time. And making your way up and down steep staircases, or weaving in and out of open aisles, all while wearing heels and boozing it, is a real challenge for one's dexterity. Inevitably, a heel gets caught and someone falls over a few seats. Or rows. But this all suggests that maybe you should have just settled on your nicest jeans, a cute top, and been content with understated and put together. It's a whole lot better than trashy, drunken, slutty mess.

Now, the men. Uh, we get this too, I think: nothing says "I'm hard" () like, well, actually, that was the thing--no one was really mean mugging or projecting the kind of unassailable gulliness that would make you think a fight could break out. Instead, it was a lot of dudes falling into one of three camps.

Camp One was composed of men who practice their bird walks and turning on their swag in front of the mirror. There were just all these guys who seemed to think that the concert was doubling as a casting call for the next generic rap video featuring repetitive chanting and coordinated dancing. And it was pretty stereotypical: lots of fake chains and loud t-shirts, plenty of A-rab money scarves and low-slung jeans. One dude had on a neon-yellow scarf that matched his neon-yellow-and-black vest and his neon-yellow underwear (). It was like hip-hop Tron or something.

Camp Two contained more traditional rap fans. You had the coordinated baseball hats and racing team jackets (Cheerios!). You had some jerseys and matching accessories. You had the conspicuous branding of LRG and Rocawear and all that. I'm also going to lump in the dudes who dressed like D'Angelo Barksdale, rocking leather jackets and affecting a certain Men's Warehouse style:

There isn't much to say about this group, although there were three from this set sitting in front of me, and one of them spent the whole time texting his paramour in the most egregious text-speak possible. I am not entirely sure that he wasn't sending her suggestions for lolcatz. Never has spelling suffered such a loss. As an educated person, I felt personally injured.

Camp Three was for people like my man's 'an 'em () and me. Just kind of there in t-shirts and jeans. However, this group sadly captured an overwhelming number of drunk-ass idiots. I don't understand men--really, any person--who come to concerts and pretend it's an open bar. First, in St. Louis, an arena is unquestionably the single most expensive place to get drunk. I can't think of anything more profligate than building a night around arena beer brewed down the block. Second, don't you miss out on the reason you've come--the performances--if, after the second hour, you can no longer walk down a row of seats without tripping multiple times? If you're that drunk, you probably forget what's happening, right? I am no teetotaler, and I think drinking can enhance many experiences, but all things in moderation. ~~For whatever reason~~ Because this show brought out St. Louis's "finest," there was an inordinate number of men who couldn't wait to make a $20 beer run. And it was annoying. They're lucky we didn't have an incident: if one more jackass had called me "Bro," grabbed my arm, and asked me to move out of the way so that he could go retrieve beers seven and eight, or thirteen and fourteen, I swear to god.... *serenity now*

OK. Anyway...

Those were the people in my neighborhood. Like I said, scallywhops. It painted a sad picture of life in St. Louis. At least, among those inclined to care about T.I. and Ludacris.

As for the concert, well let's start with this: to death, taxes, and the enduring racial hostility of Boston, we can add to our list of absolutes the corrolary that hip-hop shows don't start on time. I have written of this sad phenomenon before. Since it's an absolute, it's no less true in St. Louis than it is in New York, and so I rolled into the Chaifetz Arena a solid two and a half hours after the doors had opened. Two and a half hours? Didn't you miss something good? Nope. I missed some opener of zero consequence who I assume will one day ascend to become a weed carrier in someone's entourage. Best of luck to him. His stage name involved the word "Kid." That's the best I can do.

Having missed him, my evening started with Murphy Lee. Let me tell you about Murphy Lee. So far, during my time in St. Louis, I have not heard a single Nelly song on the radio. I hear about Nelly from teachers who don't know much about hip-hop but understand that Nelly is a local celebrity and mention him to me when they find out that I am a rap enthusiast. And my friends and colleagues at school, most of whom are from elsewhere, make references to Nelly when discussing local culture. But Nelly isn't really a part of my everyday St. Louis life. And I don't think he is a part of everyday life for most people here. At least, not right now.

But Murphy Lee? Well, on the radio, they play that Big Tuck song that he coopted a lot. And they play that shitty-ass "My Shoes" a lot. And he is in a number of random ads. It's like the bizzaro world. Everywhere else, he is a footnote in hip-hop, if that, even. But here, he continues to command a special place in the cultural universe. I find it mildly pathetic, to be honest, because no one really cares about the St. Lunatics anymore; that moment in time has passed. And so, his persistent celebrity only serves as a referendum on St. Louis's cultural relevancy. Murphy Lee is actually just like the Rams--can't get over his recent, but faded, glory.

Murph Derrty (sp?) hit the stage with his entourage--which included Slo'Down, the Lunatic who wears the mask--and did his few solo songs. Like "What the Hook Gon' Be." And then he did some verses from St. Lunatic songs, including "Air Force 1's" and "Shake Ya Tailfeather" (which remains a pretty awesome guilty-pleasure track). And then he did his opening verse from "Not a Stain on Me" THREE TIMES IN A ROW. In. A. Row. They just kept throwing the beat on and letting him rap the same lyrics over and over. Hello? What? It perfectly captured the tenor of the evening.

So yeah, that happened. And then another staple of hip-hop shows popped up: the extended, between-set, house-DJ downtime. Only this wasn't your father's rap-concert downtime. First, as noted, we were in St. Louis, a rap market where all things begin and end in St. Louis, Atlanta, Miami, and New Orleans. There were none of the house-DJ staples that otherwise pervade markets from New York to Chicago to Los Angeles. And in this rapidly changing, ultra-regional, short-attention-span hip-hop market, history is functionally irrelevant. It feels very youth-oriented in that regard, whether or not that's fair. Want to get the crowd hyped up? Why waste your time with Scarface or Nelly? Who dwells on Lil' Jon? Just throw on the ten latest, interchangeable Soulja Boy records. Pretty much literally.

You know when you go to a wedding, or an NBA All-Star Game, or a Filipino prison yard, and everyone starts dancing together? Well, Chaifetz Arena resembled all of those when the DJ threw on "Kiss Me thru the Phone." It was fairly awesome. Everywhere, people got up and started dancing, pretty much in unison. And it just kept going and going. Record after record, people were up on their seats, in the aisles, along the concourses--all just getting down with the latest club songs. For the next 30 minutes, the arena was filled with all kinds of just-dropped dance rap and thousands of adoring fans. That was really fun, particularly because several small groups had come to the concert in coordinated outfits seemingly intent on exploiting such an opportunity. There may have even been a few dance battles. The house-DJ downtime wound up being one of the three most-appreciated parts of the evening among the audience, in general.

Free swim, so to speak, was interrupted by an unquestionably odd circumstance: Jim Jones came on stage.

As people were still dancing, the scoreboards in the arena began flashing ads for an official concert after party hosted by Jimmy. Jones was not advertised as part of the concert lineup, but he obviously was meant to be there, so that was sad for him--from not even top ten to not mentioned at all. No one else really seemed to notice the ads, though, because everyone was dancing, and getting beer, and milling around, and probably hoping that "Not a Stain on Me" would come back on. But ever perspicacious, I noted the signs and immediately turned to my friend while shouting something along the lines of, "Capo Status is here! Capo! Dip Set, baby, Dip Set! Joooooooones!" Then, the house DJ said "I think my man Jim Jones is in the building." And he repeated that a few times, getting ever more loud. However, no one--NO ONE--gave a shit. Except me. Things then got awkward. The crowd wanted to keep dancing but the DJ had to make people excited about Jimmy. So he kept asking, "Y'all ready for Jim Jones?" And the reaction was reliably disinterested every time. Finally, the DJ stopped trying, and they just cut the lights. Then, Jim and his cohorts walked up on stage and, in very disjointed fashion, launched into "Certified Gangstas."

Capo's problem is like Murphy Lee's. He's best known as being part of a collective and contributing verses to posse cuts. Also, Jim:Cam'ron :: Murphy:Nelly. Only, on this night, it was worse for Jimmy because he wasn't in his home market, and because no one in St. Louis cares about Jim Jones. It would be as if Murphy came to New York, where no one would care about him, and everyone would act largely indifferent as he floundered about on stage. Hip-hop remains a confederation of regions, and the truly national stars are limited. Jones, like Lee, is not one of them. Honestly, I think I was the only person in the building excited that he was there, and even I couldn't rap along to most of Jimmy's solo songs. Plus, I spent most of his stage time yelling out "Dip Set," "it's the Set, baby," or the names of various Diplomats. (The dudes in front of me somehow knew what I was talking about and appreciated that 40 Cal and J.R. Writer got name checked.) I was even more hopeful that we'd have a Ron Browz sighting.

Following "Gangstas," which totally bricked with the crowd, Jimmy said "I got off the plane, and it's cold in St. Louis. We need to warm things up." And that, of course, meant "Summer with Miami," another song that the audience seemed to only vaguely recognize. This kept happening for a while. "We Fly High"? I was one of 20 people to shoot a jumper. It got so bad, and so out of whack, that Jones started putting on Juelz records and saying things like "If Juelz were here, we'd perform this one." That is a direct quote, actually. So we, the audience, got to rap along with the chorus of "Oh Yes" and "There It Go" as Jimmy tried to stitch together a narrative about meeting a willing girl, whistling to show approval, and then sealing the deal. To complete this tepidly amorous trifecta, and while conspicuously ommiting a certain name, Jim threw on "Suck It or Not." A law student, I almost sued him on Cam's behalf. Mercifully, the set ended with the only song anyone cared about at all: "Pop Champagne." Of course, actual bottles of bub were popped as Jimmy kind of muddled his way through his verse. Then, he was gone, a puddle of champagne remained on stage, and we all pretended that a shared hallucination was over.

Ludacris arrived on stage next, and I have nothing bad to say about the man because he just wrecked it. Dun was out there for an hour, and it felt like 20 minutes because his set was just superb and it went by too quickly.

Luda's a funny dude, and assessing him is tricky. I don't think he's consistently made great albums. In fact, I think his first and his most recent are both very good, and everything else is somewhere between mildly underwhelming and good-but-leaves-you-wanting-more. Further, his acting, his quasi-political run-ins, and his obvious wordly awareness have led critics to project onto him an exaggerated sense of gravitas. This post from She Real Cool should forever temper the more inflated assessments of Ludacris the Acceptable Rapper. However, all that said, he is a smart guy when he wants to be. He is legitimately funny. He can flow for days. He can write a good song. And he has been prolific for about a decade. Who has more, better guest and remix spots? Maybe Jadakiss or Busta, but I don't think so. Ludacris is among the more reliable voices in rap music.

It all adds up. On this night, I don't think he did more than half of his singles. He didn't do some of the better album tracks. He completely ommited his work with Usher, with Missy, with Nas, with Kanye, with flavors of the month like The Dream. He didn't do any of that, and he still killed it. I suppose that it helps when you can start with "Everybody Hates Chris," perform songs like "Ho" and "Southern Hospitality," segue into your verses from remixes of "Damn" and "Dey Know" and have the crowd in a frenzy. It helps when you can bring out Playaz Circle for "Duffle Bag Boy," can bring out I-20 for "Move," can bring out Shawnna for "What's Your Fantasy." "Stand Up," "We Got," "Grew up a Screw Up,"Runaway Love," "Mouths to Feed," "MVP"? No, no, no, no, no, no. Didn't need them. He really could have done two more hours and not run out of notable, enjoyable material. And he's a showman. He understands how to create energy, build more onto it, and get the crowd rocking. He can structure a set, and this is a largely underrated talent among rappers. I will forever, from here on out, happily pay money to see a Ludacris show.

A prominent sidenote was that Shawnna was probably the second-most popular person in the arena, behind only Ludacris. She did "Fantasy," she did "Gettin' Some Head" (which caused the drunken 40-year-old woman behind me to exclaim, "Aw shit, this is my fucking joint!"), and she then did some rapid-spit joint off of a forthcoming album that made people lose their minds. Her ovation after this last song was as loud as an arena only 60% full (recession hits hard!) can be. In St. Louis, Shawnna is the Jay-Z to Jim Jones's Vanilla Ice.

When Luda was done, so was, roughly, 15-20% of the crowd. A lot of people filed out and never returned. I sort of wished I had been one of them, because I bought my ticket excited about Ludacris but only intrigued by T.I. Clifford Harris just doesn't do it for me (). Sorry to all the readers who think he's a genius, or who "love his swag," or whatever. He's just mediocre at best. King was far from the soaring accomplishment that critics wanted it to be, T.I. vs. T.I.P. was laughably forgettable, and Paper Trail is good, but not as good as Theater of the Mind. The stuff before King is a little too regional and generic for me, though songs like "24's" do stand out. I guess that there are only so many times that I care to hear about how good of a hustler Mr. Harris claims to be.

T.I.'s stage show is similar to his catalogue: it has its moments, but it's also weak when compared to those of better rappers. Ludacris had the crowd's energy as high as it could be. T.I. never came close to that. He started out alright, and T.I. has been making music long enough to have the many songs required for an hour or even 90 minutes of feel-goodery. "Top Back," "I'm Illy," "24's," "Rubber Band Man," "What You Know," "Swing Ya Rag," "ASAP," "You Don't Know Me," "Bring 'Em Out." Dude has songs people know and like; no one questions that. But he is terribly angry--either for real or as part of a persona--and just horrible at maintaining momentum.

His set was one of fits and starts, one of awkward, slow soliloquies interspersed among poorly sequenced songs. He'd get the crowd's energy flowing and then he'd stop to talk for five minutes about all of the "motherfucking motherfuckers, and all of the motherfucking haters" who had hoped they'd never see him again. He'd juxtapose an exciting, high-energy song with a slow, boring one, and then he'd start talking and talking and talking about "ho-ass rappers" again. He made a number of veiled threats and semi-coherent rants about jail. T.I. spent almost as much time projecting and angrily admonishing the crowd as he did rapping. I understand that he has had legal problems, that he's lost friends, and that he has one of the worst cases of Napoleon complex ever. But that doesn't really explain why he was so angry the whole night. It was funny before it became amusing before it became awkward before it became uncomfortable. We all paid money to see him; what the fuck was he yelling at us for? Had he just rapped and built to a crescendo, rather than telling us how much he hated L.A. Reid for doubting him, it would have been much better.

By the time he arrived at "What You Know" and "Live Your Life" and his other biggest radio hits, the crowd was excited but kind of weary. And a little confused since he wouldn't shut up. At least, I certainly felt that way, and I wasn't the only one. It was a disspiriting ending to the show when contrasted with Ludacris, but it also was oddly appropriate given the attendant circumstances of the evening.

And so, to recap: Murphy Lee is lame; Jim Jones is even lamer; we all love to dance; Ludacris is the man; Shawnna should run for mayor of St. Louis; T.I. could likely use some time in the hole to consider revising his live show; and St. Louis is a confusing, weird place. On a 10-point scale, here's how the excitement levels of the night turned out:

10 - Ludacris
9 - Shawnna
8 - Tie: Dancing to house music, T.I.
4 - Murphy Lee
-7 - Jim Jones

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