2 Chainz heats up icy campus
While the icy winds of the winter storm left NKU’s campus in a chill, the jams blaring from the 2 Chainz concert were heating up the “2 Good 2 Be T.R.U.” tour within The Bank of Kentucky Center on March 2.
And this concert wasn’t just off the chain – it was off two.
The concert kicked off with rapper Lil’ St. Louis.
Lil’ St. Louis’ most notable aspect of his performance was the fact that he spent more time promoting his Instagram page and social media accounts than he actually did rapping. This really seems to be where modern hip-hop is going today – handle the promotional material first and then actually work on that which you’re promoting.
It should be noted at this point that a certain attendee, a juggalo, who bore an Insane Clown Posse “hatchet man” logo was so pumped for the opening music that he could barely keep his shirt on. Ironically enough, he was wearing one of the expensive tour t-shirts that he undoubtedly just paid for at the concert but that didn’t faze him in the least.
After Lil’ St. Louis finished his set, the order was switched around and Pusha T came on in place of the original first tour performer, August Alsina. Rumor was that Alsina’s tour bus was not ready for the snowy weather, so Pusha T stepped up to the plate and delivered a solid performance.
As soon as he was done with his set, August Alsina showed up at just the right time to follow up. Apparently Alsina had to push his tour van himself the last couple of miles because he was out of breath after just a couple songs.
The strange part of the tour promotion was that most on-campus posters only promoted 2 Chainz and Pusha T, so one would assume that Alsina was a relatively unknown name.
But that was not the case in the least. If Pusha T was delivering some rough and ready rap jams for the men in the house, Alsina’s R&B influenced croons were just for the ladies in the room, and they were all going nuts over it.
At the time, it seemed that Alsina’s fans had the greater numbers but after considering the demographics, that probably wasn’t true. The probable explanation was that his fans were just way, way louder than Pusha T’s fans.
At this point in the night, our “unidentified juggalo” friend was actually quite tame for Alsina’s set — it would seem that the tunes for the fairer sex have the ability to tame even the most ferocious of beasts.
And then there were two – 2 Chainz that is. The crowd went wild when he stepped on the stage and he started off his set with the opening sample of his latest record before jumping right into the song.
His stage was decorated with four large LCD video screens playing videos that went along with the lyrics to the songs.
“Each of these cinematic videos were either directly or indirectly based off some part of my life,” 2 Chainz said.
After a couple of expository videos and opening songs, 2 Chainz thanked the people in the crowd for making their way to the show, even with all the ice and snow coming down.
“Raise your hands if you believe in God,” 2 Chainz shouted at the crowd. “I don’t think I could have got here in this weather if there wasn’t one!”
The next performance took the rapper back to his early days as he gave a brief personal reflection.
“If you’ve been following me since day one, you know where I’m coming from,” 2 Chainz said. Then the beat dropped to one of his early hits, “Crack.”
Then one incident from the crowd just rubbed 2 Chainz the wrong way. After he spotted someone in the audience holding an HD camera, 2 Chainz berated the fan and let him know that he didn’t want to see anything of the like.
“If there’s one thing I just can’t stand, it’s when someone tries to record the whole show,” 2 Chainz said. “I had to put out eight mixtapes before I got any attention, just enjoy the show.”
Nearing the end of his set, 2 Chainz let his fans know what he’s been working on and why he’s been out of the spotlight.
“I had one simple reason why I didn’t want to do any interviews when 2014 rolled around,” he said. “I just didn’t want to do any interviews!”
So now that it was quite clear there wasn’t going to be any press time with the rapper, it was now more important than ever to keep up with 2 Chainz’ latest news.
“I’m working on my third solo record, I’m starting up my own label and I’m working on a movie,” he announced.
With just a few last songs to leave the crowd with, 2 Chainz decided to take a personal moment to give a shout out to a “fallen Puerto Rican homie.” After showing some love to his close friend, “Puerto Rican Johnny,” he bounced right into his closing track, “U Da Realest.”
As 2 Chainz stepped off the stage in quite possibly the largest pair of shoes in human history, he left the crowd with quite a show and plenty of swag. For his final words, he shouted out his signature slogan, “Love, peace and hair grease.”