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Live: Summer Jam '08, Shockingly Harmonious

Posted 06/02/2008 at 3:04 AM  |  1 comment/s

HOT 97 Summer Jam 2008
Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Alicia Keys, T-Pain, etc.
Giants Stadium
June 1, 2008

Let's get right to it: This was Lil Wayne's show, his weekend, his controversy and his moment to spoil--which he nearly did. And though he didn't close this year's edition of Summer Jam (technically surprise guest Jim Jones did that, though Public Enemy was the last scheduled performer and Kanye West openly played martyr by complaining about closing the show, something he wasn't doing, but may as well have been for many in the audience, myself included) Wayne offered the most polarizing performance of the night, an odd spectacle that featured few hits, lots of audience groveling and some genuinely inspired star moments. As the day turned to night in Giants Stadium, he arrived on stage amidst smoke and the swell of "A Milli," a song the crowd immediately attached themselves to, even if Wayne did not. Early on it was clear Wayne was neither clear-headed nor particularly focused, but he is a machine running on charisma fuel right now.

This week he dismissed all the mixtapes DJs ("Fuck you if you a mixtape DJ") who both profited from his legendary output and helped create a historic moment in rap with that prolificacy. Then on Friday the long-awaited Tha Carter III leaked--a fascinating album I imagine I'll write about endlessly this week--and created an altogether different vessel for criticism. That his versions of "Cash Money Millionaire" and "Fireman" were mostly buoyed by the good will he's been garnering for the last 5 years--a frighteningly vast era full of hits and misses but never boredom--is hardly a surprise. He seemed a bit out of gas. He brought Shawty Lo out for his verse on the "Dey Know" remix (Shawty, however, would not even receive a mic, let alone rap) and Tity Boi followed with an abbreviated version of "Duffle Bag Boy." After that minor flurry of well-known songs, Wayne snatched a guitar, sat down calmly and begin strumming. The sounds were off-key and, despite the striving for some sort of musical legitimacy that they implied, poorly conceived. His strums morphed into "Leather So Soft," a song whose appeal escapes me to this very moment. But this is the exact moment where it was clear that Wayne has made THE LEAP. That moment when all women have fallen for a rapper and his charm no longer requires a male audience. The screams came loud and fast and without abandon. Thanks to his hit "Lollipop" (which he performed later in the set, followed by the remix with Kanye), his evolution into a masculine presence and the sly grin that accompanied the yowls of all four verses of his live set staple "Pussy Monster," an a capella wonder that literally had people rolling in the aisles of Giants Stadium, Wayne has become a pop star that has not yet lost credibility with serious rap and R&B fans, while tempting a new set of eyes and ears. That contrast was clearly highlighted by the Kanye West performance that would follow. "Pussy Monster" was joyful and lewd, crotch-grabbing absurdity. Even the dudes in black skullies and Locs couldn't help but smile. But by teaching women to love him, and in ways desire him, Wayne seems to have figured out something better than being "the best rapper alive": Best Lothario Alive. He departed, in a robe, to Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" but he was the star of the night and he knew it full well.

Kanye West followed with a bombastic, if smaller scale set compared to his recent Glow In The Dark Tour. He offered a few surprises: Young Jeezy popped out, sporting a FUCK BUSH T-shirt, for the increasingly powerful and anthemic "Put On," Consequence oddly got some shine on "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," Rita G dropped trou and bent over for 50,000 during an orchestral "Flashing Lights" and Kanye himself delivered a clever new "freestyle" that fumbled with sticky math and recalled the grandeur of Jay-Z's "44 Fours" at Radio City Music Hall. Like that song, it was an impressive, but breathy and "important" series of rhymes. The crowd seemed disappointed and even bored with parts of Kanye's set. And Kanye could sense it, openly admitting "I'll take this one on the chin." His set was no less fiery than his G.I.T.D. date at MSG two weeks prior (although the audience was starkly different), but after the sheer strangeness and palpable moment that Wayne created, something fell short. Perhaps if Rihanna, who failed to show up for unexplained reasons, were sandwiched between Wayne and Kanye, this may not have been a problem. But after Wayne bridged the gap, Kanye seemed to trample on it.

The rest of the show was, frankly, an organized series of adrenaline shots. What could have been a sleepy afternoon Alicia Keys set was ramped up first by a random appearance by Maino, who clearly has a smash on his hands with "Hi Haters"--the entire audience LOVED shouting the hook--and then Raekwon, Method Man and Ghostface for a Wu-Tang medley that felt unforced. Keys was seen singing almost every word to "Incarcerated Scarfaces," "C.R.E.A.M.," "Ice Cream," and "Method Man." Dressed in a white wifebeater, black jeans and rhinestone-bejeweled stiletto boots, Keys looked strong, New York, and rarely awkward. She closed with "No One" and had everyone singing along; a soft, polite moment for a generally aggro crowd.

The next punch in the face came during D-Block's swarm of East Coast rap, which included appearances by Sheek and Styles, naturally, followed by Red Cafe, Fat Joe, Fabolous, Jadakiss (who seems out of it these days), N.O.R.E., Nature, Swizz Beatz and finally a chest-thumping, redemptive cameo from LL Cool J, an object lesson in stage presence if there ever was one. "Paper Touchin'" and "Banned From TV" were highlights and, in a beautiful bit of irony, Sheek Louch, of all people, was the only artist on the stage with a current hit single, his "Good Love" floating through the Summer afternoon like a butterfly. I'm still getting over Sheek having a hit called "Good Love." These are strange times for New York rappers.

There's nothing strange about the South right now and T-Pain's set acted as a perfunctory transition into a Southern bonanza. And like the Eastern commission that preceded, the South seemed unified, gallant even. T-Pain, looking like a green Cat in the Hat, opened with his verses from Unk's "Two Step" and Chris Brown's "Kiss Kiss" before ceding the stage to the cavalcade, including Shawty Lo and "Dey Know," DJ Khaled, a shirtless and gargantuan Rick Ross (most surprised by the reception he got, which was huge), Khaled's new artist Ace Hood (who got a thunderous cheer, until it was revealed that Ace, who has dreads, was not Lil Wayne), Akon and Fat Joe, again. The expected cuts came pouring in: "The Boss," "I'm So Hood," "We Takin' Over," "Cashflow," "Bartender." T-Pain cleared the stage, killed "Buy U A Drank (Shawty Snappin')," one of the great pop songs of the decade, and departed by saying, "In the words of George Bush 'Fuck y'all niggaz I'm out.'" Perfectly ridiculous.

Other highlights and lowlights, you decide which is which:

-"All my ladies who make more than 20,000 dollars a year make some noise" - followed by the requisite reggae set.

-Funk Flex in a fuchsia Polo that matched the Danny Glover-style "I'm too old for this shit" look on his face.

-Part of the genius of the show is Hot 97's DJs spinning between every set. Banger after reliable banger.

-The-Dream's dancers, in black catsuits, writhing almost as suggestively on the floor as Wayne did during his set.

-A co-worked calling The-Dream, who I adore, "a cricket."

-Nore's weight gain.

-Ray J and Yung Berg's weirdly heated and discomforting set. Berg, chill, you're doing "Sexy Lady" not "Triumph."

-The American flag trucker hat Kanye wore during "Lollipop (Remix)".

-Alicia opening with "Ghetto Story (Remix)", still one the smartest things she's ever done.

-LL's cryptic closing statement: ""A lot of people been sleeping. They gonna wake up this year." Oh-kay.

-T-Pain and Kanye nailing "Good Life," still a perfectly obvious and perfectly good song.

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