For starters, this “recap” was never planned to ever be posted. It was a free show at a university that I wasn’t expecting much of. My brother and his friends decided to go, so I figured I should too. I mean, I like the guy, right? Turns out, the events that transpired this evening made for one of the cooler stories at a show I’ve had. I’d also like to note that this is in no way a “review,” merely a lengthy livejournal-esque post.

Hit the jump for the recap/xanga entry.

-grizzly

So we made the 45 minute-1 hour drive out to Prairie View University, home of a Big Sean show for your average, run of the mill, school morale building. Big Sean had tweeted that people from anywhere could come, as it was an open show. Turns out, it wasn’t. Prairie View students only. So instead of heading back after an incredibly pointless hour-long drive, we tried to measle our way in through radio personalities from 97.9 (local station in Houston) to school personnel. Not to mention, my group and I all expressed our dismay towards Sean’s botched promo, to which he responded to not once, but twice.

Turns out, Boost Mobile (a sponsor, more on that later) had representatives who were promoting with free shit, and a guy approached us. Through a bit of a hat trick, the guy came down with five wristbands and five “staff” laminates, and got us into the show. An added perk to this whole thing was that:

1. We saw Big Sean soundcheck.
2. Met Devin the Dude (he was high as fuck, as to be expected)
3. Had some bougey VIP standing room, so as to not have to mingle with the PV student body and their collective rowdy asses.

On to the show: Three openers. A dude named AP (not bad, not good), a group of ridiculous idiots and a dark-skinned version of Nipsey Hussle who absolutely sucked at rapping, and a stripper named Just Britney. Now, according to her twitter and what not, she’s quite the personality in Texas. A former stripper ternt sanga, she’s now (what I coined) as the “equate version” of Nicki Minaj. A lot of pink. Broke ass “barbies.” A completely huge posterior. I mean that thing is huge. Oh, and she’s just awful. During her set, she derobed, dudes rushed the stage, a chick came out playing a guitar that wasn’t plugged in, and she went off-key about 37 times. All this, she managed to put on a pretty decent show as far as crowd participation and response goes, but that’s only because every dude in the audience was too busy gawking at that ass.

Big Sean came on next, and was told to keep the show clean. That was a disaster. For starters, the DJ on hand was not one of his own, and ended up playing songs and having Sean rap over em. Not too bad, but that doesn’t necessarily make for the best shows. Big Sean is a good enough performer to carry a show with his stage presence, which made up for that fact, but still – it’d be nice for rappers to rap over instrumentals. He played most of Finally Famous Vol. III, which has grown on me over time. Initial listens yielded about 3-4 results, but after seeing him perform most of it a few months back, I warmed up to a few more joints.

reads: “Big Sean.” “weworemasks boi.”

He threw in classic Sean records like “Supa Dupa,” “Rollin” and “Desire, Want and Need,” but tends to ignore the rest of his back catalogue. Which sucks for dudes like me who swear by the first two mixtapes, but hey – it’s a free show. Regardless, after the show, the staff at PV (who were all awesome people, seriously) invited us to a meet and greet with ol “boi” himself. Of course, we said yes. So we got a few things signed, got pictures and shot the shit a little bit.

Naturally, this is where the promo steps in. I handed him a business card, from which he recognized the name of who he was tweeting at earlier. I also warmed him up to the idea of interviewing him at SXSW, and for him to put me in touch with his management, to which he gladly obliged. I’m not holding my breath for it, but it would definitely be a plus to the whole night. Regardless, the guy heard the name enough times for an evening, grabbed a few business cards and some kind words to boot.

—

***Back to the Boost Mobile thing: After chatting with some PV students/promoters for the event, I’d come to find that Big Sean has been playing at schools for free. That’s right – $0. On the contrary, he sought out and had his people contact Prairie View (and other schools) and have them set up shows where he can perform for students for free. And while Boost Mobile and other sponsors fund Sean’s end, the artist himself takes no money from the schools, which is fairly commendable.

Anyway, support this guy when his album drops on May 3rd (as of now). He was nothing but cool and I have nothing but good things to say about him, his work ethic and his team. Except that FF3 was subpar. But for real.

My friend White Mike/Polar Bear took a few videos at the show, which include: “My Last,” “Supa Dupa Lemonade” and “Rollin,” all of which you can see here.

Enjoy. Boi.