Last Saturday, a bus full of UR students pulled up outside of the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Gordon Field House where there was a seemingly endless Disney World-sized line of locals and college students. Who could possibly draw this size of a crowd? Could it be the RIT Tigers, Jessica Simpson, Kris Kringle or Snoop Dogg? If you guessed Snoop, then you probably have a decent GPA.
RIT has hosted rappers like Nas and G-Unit, but neither of them managed to pack the Gordon Field House like Snoop. With a career that spans over 19 years, the 38-year-old West Coast rapper drew a diverse crowd of old and new school cats.
Regardless of his highly successful career, Snoop had to please every type of audience member. If he performed too many songs from his new album ‘Malice N’ Wonderland,” old school fans would probably break out in seizures. But if he performed too much from ‘Chronic,” the new schoolers would probably be irked that they spent $15 on ‘Malice N’ Wonderland” when he hardly cares about performing any of the new tracks.
But before anyone could vibe out to Snoop’s trademark melodic and laid-back flow, the crowd had to endure a set of excruciatingly long opening acts by the Psychodelic Ghetto Pimpz and K. Flay. To their credit, both artists had something special to offer.
The Psychodelic Ghetto Pimpz funked up the house with covers of George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic and Michael Jackson’s ‘Human Nature.” But the young crowd (which is usually synonymous to having a bad taste in music) grew restless and expressed their discontent with jeers and chants for Snoop Dogg.
By the time K. Flay hit the stage, she had to deal with a restless and drunken crowd that resorted to Woodstock-style mosh pits. However, Flay’s impressively fast flow and energetic self-made beats caught the crowd’s attention. But after about 40 minutes of the same thing, everyone started to cry for Snoop.
Then it happened. Fashionably late is surely an understatement for a guy like Snoop. Snoop came in after an amusing opening tape that mixed clips from his rap videos with scenes from ‘Scarface,” ‘Sugar Hill,” ‘Foxy Cleopatra” and ‘Cool Breeze.”
Once he hit the stage, the crowd immediately took part in what Snoop claims to have created: weed. The Gordon Field transformed into Kirby’s Dream Cloud as every Snoop fan took a celebratory puff for hip-hop’s highest rapper (one would speculate that this is the reason for his late appearance). Snoop, who recently came out in public about his allegiance to the Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan, was accompanied by four Fruit of Islam escorts who spent the entire time standing on the corners of the stage in soldier formation with their hands in their suit-pockets.
Snoop set the tone for the night when he opened with ‘Chronic” classic ‘Nuthin’ But a G’ Thang” and waved his arms from side-to-side in slow motion. From there, everything flowed perfectly.
Fans vibed to ‘Gin and Juice” and ‘Beautiful,” got sensual with ‘I Wanna Fuck You” and ‘Sexual Seduction” and bopped to ‘Drop It Like It’s Hott” and his newest single from ‘Malice “N Wonderland,” ‘I Wanna Rock Right Now.” Snoop also showed his growth over the years by cutting out references to killing the police in ‘187 on an Undercover Cop.”
Possibly the liveliest part of the show was Snoop’s tribute to Tupac. Everyone held their lighters and cell phones to the ceiling and rapped the lyrics to ‘Hail Mary” with Snoop. But, Snoop didn’t want to leave the East Coast hanging: He immediately switched up the tempo and threw on the Notorious B.I.G.’s ‘Hypnotize,” forcing everyone to go into a frenzy as he honored the borough that birthed true hip-hop: Brooklyn.
By the time 45 minutes were up, Snoop was all done for the night. Some fans were understandably disappointed, considering that K. Flay and The Pshcyodelic Ghetto Pimpz were on stage longer than the main attraction. But Snoop wasn’t ready to leave the field house without a little heart-to-heart message for his fans.
‘Before I leave, I want you to know three things that everyone should do when they first wake up in the morning,” Snoop said. ‘Number one, brush your teeth. Number two, thank God that you lived to see another day. And number three. The third one, well. Number three is to smoke weed mother fuckers.”
Security couldn’t help but chuckle and shake their heads as Snoop grooved down the stairs to George Clinton’s ‘Atomic Dog” with his FOA entourage. A bit short, sure. But Snoop’s concert was probably the best 45 minutes $18 could buy.
Nathaniel is a member ofthe class of 2011.
