Author: Anahid Yahjian
It was the kind of welcome everyone secretly wishes for when stepping off a plane after a long flight: 800 bodies rising in anticipatory unison, their cheers rattling the walls as they pound the palms of their hands together, smiling so big it’s a wonder their cheek muscles don’t tear like jerky in the middle of summer. Anticipation filled Thorne Hall and security braced itself for the pent-up energy that was about to spew all over the place. “It’s time for what we’ve all been waiting for,” the emcee said.
The moment had finally arrived: hip-hop legend in the making Lupe Fiasco stepped into Thorne Hall, his sunglasses sparkling in the spotlights as 1,600 eyes frantically read the massive lettering on his shirt: “Something Like a Phenomenon,” it said, and as he launched into the first track of the night, there wasn’t a single person who didn’t believe they were about to experience something phenomenal.
Backstage, Julian Mitchell’s (junior) body was reduced to a blur of denim jean and cotton t-shirt as he sprinted from stage left to stage right, reciting the words to “Kick, Push” in unison with Fiasco. His forehead was drowning in sweat but it didn’t matter because, as he said to anyone that would tear their eyes from the stage long enough to listen to him, “He’s here!”
Mitchell’s need to state the obvious was the result of seeing the fruits of over four months of relentless planning and challenges overcome. He and fellow Black Student Alliance (BSA) members Elen Thompson (junior) and Aron Shimeles (sophomore) had put an enormous amount of work into “The Cool with Lupe Fiasco,” culminating in the rare large-scale event last Wednesday night.
As the BSA’s Black History Month chair, Thompson came up with the idea to invite Fiasco-who won the Best Urban/Alternative Performance Grammy last month for the track “Daydreamin'” from his debut Food & Liquor-to Occidental about four months ago in an attempt to go beyond last year’s largely successful “Hip-Hop Blast Off.”
“We wanted [to plan] one big BSA event that brought it home,” Mitchell said, whose connections at marketing company ArcMedia helped the BSA get in touch with Fiasco’s representatives.
The event was also meant to function as an opportunity to educate students about prostate cancer, with informational pamphlets passed out in the quad in the days leading up to the performance as well as a reading of information about the disease prior to Fiasco’s set on the night of. Mitchell insisted that it was “not a concert” but “an awareness program,” citing research he and Thompson had done while brainstorming ideas for a cause to be benefitted by the event that showed the increasing numbers of men dying from prostate cancer.
Particularly, they felt it important to pass on the message to the young black males on campus. Mitchell pointed out the statistic that black students in the Oxy student population are a minority and that “with empowerment comes education,” making it imperative that they know what health risks they are facing in the modern age.
According to Mitchell, the initial intent was to use whatever profits were left over to contribute to a related charity through the BSA. It is unclear at this point whether this is still a possibility, as much of the money is needed to make up for the cost of the event.
Last week, the Weekly reported the ASOC’s estimated $2,500 contribution to the event, stating that the entire cost was about $30,000. Though unable to confirm this information because of legal constraints, Mitchell, Thompson and Shimeles said the majority of the costs were covered by the BSA’s club funds. Local sponsors included Transport Skating, Eagle Rock Underground-who donated free clothing that Mitchell ended up throwing into the crowd between acts-ArcMedia and co-sponsors Programming Board and KOXY.
Many last-minute developments in the project took place, including securing Thorne Hall as the venue. Mitchell, Thompson and Shimeles had struggled to find an appropriate place to host the event, as there were specific considerations that had to be made. The Greek Bowl-which was used for a Talib Kweli concert of similar scale last year-would require purchasing outdoor sound equipment, while Keck theater was booked and for some time, so was Thorne. A day opened up a few weeks before the show and Thorne was locked in as the location, costing an unanticipated $1,000 to book, according to Mitchell.
“That was the price that crept up on us at the very end,” he said in reference to his second request for funding from the ASOC.
Mitchell was especially grateful for PB’s help with the event. They assisted with designing and distributing the program and tickets, as well as bringing in couches for Fiasco’s dressing room and the backstage area and assisting with the distribution of the prostate cancer brochures.
“They actually helped us instead of just giving us money,” Mitchell said.
Originally, the event was supposed to be the next “Cafe Unplugged” project, a series made up of performances by members of HBO’s Def Comedy and Def Poetry Jam shows, as well as live bands from the area. Two dance groups as well as an emcee had also been slated to appear. According to Mitchell, a little over a week before the event, he was informed that although the participation of these performers “[was] verbally agreed” upon, it needed to be put in writing-so they would not be able to be a part of the event.
As “Cafe Unplugged with Lupe Fiasco” was changed to “The Cool with Lupe Fiasco”-in honor of Fiasco’s latest album, released last December-Mitchell approached several “dope performers” to come up with a new line-up consisting of Oxy students and alumni to precede Fiasco’s act.
Conor Anderson (first-year) was first up, reciting two original spoken word pieces, the first titled “junk dealers,” while the second was untitled. Anderson’s words gave the night an intellectual opening, his steady tone beating to the themes of love, loss, revival and metaphor. He ended his set with the haunting phrase “poetry is a lonely business,” walking off the stage to tumultuous applause from the audience.
Winner of last year’s Apollo Night Dior Williams (sophomore) was the first musical performer of the evening, singing a soulful rendition of John Legend’s “Ordinary People.” It was evident members of the audience had seen her perform before and were fans; cheers and applause could be heard throughout as she softly cooed Legend’s plea to his love to “take it slow” through the fire of their relationship. Williams was “nervous, but ready to have a good time” prior to her performance, as she had finally gotten over the cold she had sung with at Apollo Night the week before.
Bridging the gap between spoken word and song, Jonathan “J.Quest” Tunstall ’07 reminded the audience of the event’s focus on prostate cancer and Black History Month and wished for “peace, love, unity [in the] hip-hop community” before launching into two original pieces, one of which was his own lyrics over Jay-Z’s instrumental “It Was All A Dream.” He was accompanied by Tope Sosanya (senior) on the turntables. Tunstall, who currently works as a substitute teacher in the Inglewood Unified School District, hoped his music “offered solutions.”
“I feel like hip-hop a lot of times, even though it’s conscious, is negative,” he said. He identified artists like Kweli and Mos Def as members of the “conscious” branch of hip-hop and explained that he hopes to spread the word of their work to Ghana, where he would like to continue the work he did abroad while an Oxy student; he considered the fact that the “biggest name there right now is 50 Cent” to be proof of how “education is key” and Ghanians are robbed of it.
Following an enthusiastic response to Tunstall’s venture into the audience at the end of his second piece, Mitchell had to escort Tunstall as he began performing a third. He later explained that the show was running behind schedule and all the acts had to be shortened.
After, stagehands quickly se
t up a drum set, keyboard and bass for Siobhan Heard (senior) and backup singers Monikah Baltimore (first year) and Ana Vasquez (first year), who performed The Roots and Jill Scott’s “You Got Me.” Many people in the first row stood up to dance along to the groove of this melodic track known for its showcase of Scott’s ability to perform vocal acrobatics that jump from highs to lows without a single break. Heard finished her set with an original piece, dancing and smiling along with her supporters in the crowd.
The following performances by Prince David-a spoken-word artist whose name is a reference to the biblical figure who “was the first poet and wasn’t a perfect man, but he tried”-and Vasquez were limited to one piece each. Of the three pieces he had planned for the night, Prince David chose to recite one about the current generation, asking the audience to chant “X” after the word “generation.” The piece “speaks to society for the generation,” he said.
Vasquez did an a cappella performance of a song by R&B singer Chrisette Michele, setting the stage for Fiasco’s entrance with the explosive applause she garnered.
Following a quick introduction by Mitchell, Thompson and Shimeles, Fiasco was met with screams, cheers, applause and general insanity as he had the audience chant the lyrics to “Kick, Push” as he spat the rhymes he has become so respected for.
Next, he soared through “Paris, Tokyo” with the occasional vocal accompaniment by his DJ behind him. It was evident that Fiasco was a performer’s performer, moving around the stage non-stop throughout his set and supplying witty interludes between songs. Following a screaming audience member’s suggestion to play “Daydreamin,'” Fiasco sent the order over to his DJ and performed a shortened version of the song.
“We made history with that,” he said in reference to the Grammy award-winning song.
But he wasn’t finished.
“You wanna hear what history being made sounds like?”
The crowd roared its response, cameras and cell phones raised high to get a shot of Fiasco as he rapped along to Matthew Santos’ now famous hook on “Superstar.” It was evident that this was one of his biggest hits, as the sound of the audience singing the chorus could often be heard overpowering the recording of Santos. Not a single seat had a person sitting in it, transforming the hall into a giant, dancing, hollering mass, no longer conscious of the fact that it was a Wednesday night and there was work to be done for class the next day.
But the feeling didn’t last much longer, unfortunately, as Fiasco said his thanks and left the stage at the song’s conclusion. Expecting the usual encore, the audience remained standing and chanted “We want Lupe” and “One more song” in hopes of getting him back on stage.
This went on for several minutes as Mandla Gobledale (sophomore) improvised on the turntables, until Mitchell came on stage, thanked everyone for coming out and announced that Fiasco would not be coming back on stage-as he was already on his way to the all-access meet-and-greet that interested students had paid extra for.
The rest of the week was filled with excited discussion over what exactly happened that night, with rumors replacing actual explanation as to Fiasco’s reasons for playing such a short set.
“The school can yap yap as much as they want,” Mitchell said. He insisted that only he, Thompson and Shimeles were in the position to supply a valid explanation. He said Fiasco was contracted to play more than he did, although he could not say specifically how much this was. He said that he and the other organizers were just as surprised to see Fiasco leave early.
“I was shocked,” Mitchell said. “Like, ‘really?'”
Mitchell said Fiasco had said he was just recovering from pneumonia and hadn’t done a show “in a minute.”
Shimeles admitted he also thought Fiasco was going to perform an encore, pointing out that the pneumonia explanation wasn’t all that logical.
“He did do Jay Leno the night before and a KIIS FM interview, too,” he said.
Thompson described the commotion that went on backstage as he and the other organizers scrambled to understand what was going on and tried to get through to Fiasco’s representatives.
“We actually didn’t know how to approach it,” he said. “We were at the bottom of the totem pole.”
“We just kind of waited,” Mitchell said, knowing that they were not going to be able to get to Fiasco personally.
Although they could not say whether legal action will be taken with Fiasco, Shimeles pointed out that it was out of the students’ hands at this point. “He had a contract with Occidental College,” he said. “Not us.”
Nevertheless, the three students didn’t think Fiasco’s shorter set reflected poorly on the overall success of the event. “I think a lot of people [are] being ridiculously negative,” Mitchell said, insisting that the student/alum performers and Fiasco’s set itself were of high quality and garnered really great audience feedback. “The energy was crazy,” he said.
“I just feel relieved and relaxed,” Thompson said, reflecting on how much work was put into the project.
Shimeles said he has been working since October of last year on planning an “underground/alternative hip-hop concert” for April of this year to take place at the Greek Bowl. He is currently in talks with performers, but did not disclose who they would be.
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