01. RPM's 02. Back Again ft. Res 03. City Playgrounds 04. Strangers ft. Bun B 05. In This World 06. Got Work (Fame) 07. Midnight Hour ft. Estelle 08. In the Red 09. Lift'in Off 10. Black Gold Intro (The Black Gold Countdown) 11. Ballad of the Black Gold 12. Just Begun ft. Jay Electronica, J. Cole and Mos Def 13. Long Hot Summer 14. Get Loose ft. Chester French 15. So Good 16. Ends ft. Bilal 17. Outro
Reflection Eternal: Talib Kweli & Hi-TekRevolutions Per Minute on Blacksmith/Warner Bros. arrives May 18.
About 30,000 people made their way to Livingston campus to join the Rutgers University Programming Association, Rutgers University Student Assembly and Student Life Friday for its annual Rutgersfest.
This year’s Rutgersfest lineup featured artists Brand New, Talib Kweli, J. Cole and P.O.S., as well as Battle of the Bands winner Reality Addiction.
“Rutgersfest has been in the making for about a year,” RUPA President Ana Castillo said. “It’s been a long time since we have had this many performers, so I think it is going to be fun for everyone. Hopefully everyone will enjoy it, because we do have a good mix of people.”
Students shared their views on the artists and events at the concert.
“Brand New was definitely my favorite part,” School of Arts and Sciences sophomore Alissa Jayne said. “Honestly, I have never even heard of any of the other acts, and then I downloaded some Talib Kweli, and I loved him. He was awesome.”
But not everyone agreed with Jayne.
Livingston College senior Desron Dorest said the lineup was sub-par in comparison to past Rutgersfests.
“If they had a more diverse lineup, I think it would have been a little bit better,” he said.
Still, Dorest said he had fun, and the event is not only about the musical lineup. “[It was good] that everybody was able to stay here, and it was a great day out,” he said. “We don’t want to leave, so it was a good thing.”
During the concert, hip-hop artist J. Cole climbed down from the stage to meet the fans in the front row.
“I just try to understand that maybe next year, I won’t be able to do this, you know,” J. Cole said after the show. “Maybe I won’t have fans, or next year I will be too big to take the time out, so while I still can do it, I try to show as much love as possible.”
J. Cole, 25, is the first artist to sign with rapper Jay-Z’s label Roc Nation.
“I love playing college shows. I feel like I know these people, you know, I went to school with these people in a sense,” he said. “I feel like I know them well.”
For some students, Rutgersfest does more than just mark the end of a year at the University. It is an event to bring the University together for one last time before the semester ends.
In 45 minutes of almost nonstop bluster at the Nokia Theater on Thursday night (April 29), Lloyd Banks squeezed in one minute for another mode of persuasion: humility.
In the last three months, he’s returned from being a curio, a relic of the 50 Cent era of the mid-2000s, to a bona fide phenomenon, an unlikely twist attributable to “Beamer, Benz or Bentley,” one of the breakout rap hits of the year. But given that Mr. Banks hasn’t had one of those in a few years, he knows better than to take it for granted.
“I am completely independent at this point,” he said early in his set, painting himself as an underdog. Mr. Banks is the main protégé of 50 Cent, the Queens rap star who’s lately been in decline. But last year he announced that he was no longer signed to Interscope Records, which distributes 50 Cent’s G-Unit Records imprint, though he remains attached to the G-Unit label.
Especially in hip-hop, the role of the major label is decreasingly relevant, but for a rapper like Mr. Banks, accustomed to the old ways of success, reclaiming an up-by-his-bootstraps narrative must be alternately frustrating and invigorating.
On Thursday he stuck with invigorated, muscling his way through old hits — “Warrior,” “Straight Outta Southside,” “On Fire” — and a few listless old nonhits, his voice as molasses-thick as ever. At one point he swapped his Hermès sneakers for a pair of black work boots: “These joints cost about $1,300, but they slippery,” he joked.
“Beamer, Benz or Bentley” is classic Banks, a fusillade of dense, braggadocian internal rhymes: “Beat it, I bet she’d let me/She been fiending since she met me”; and “Press a button and I’m stunting, my roof look like it’s ducking/ Meter go 200-something and my trunk do wonders bumping.”
In other words, Mr. Banks is a brainy and boastful rapper, which leads to some stratification in his audience, some there for the attitude, and some for the intricate punch lines. That might explain, in part, the rest of Thursday’s scattershot bill: Jackie Chain, Cory Gunz and Reflection Eternal, three acts with no overlap point in their collective Venn diagram.
Best was Jackie Chain, a half-white, half-Korean rapper from Huntsville, Ala., but who received the night’s most hostile reception. What he might lack in lyrical acuity, though, he makes up for in personality: songs like “Mack a Bitch” and “Rollin’ ” are anthems waiting for audiences to recognize them.
Cory Gunz, newly signed to Lil Wayne’s Young Money Records, wasn’t booed or greeted with middle fingers by the crowd, but his quick, nimble rhymes were largely charmless.
Most vexing was Reflection Eternal, the reliable social-progressive duo of Talib Kweli and Hi-Tek, who five years ago probably would not have guessed that they’d be on a bill opening for Mr. Banks. Their set — longer than Mr. Banks’s — felt like largely thankless work, the verses about Liberia and health care falling on uninterested ears. Older, more chipper songs — “Definition,” “Get By” — fared better, but not by enough to sandpaper down the dissonance.
By the time Mr. Banks finally got around to “Beamer, Benz or Bentley” at the end of his set, several dozen associates had joined him onstage. While they’d been enthusiastic up until that point, when the first peal of that song’s beat (produced by the comer Prime) dropped, they turned ecstatic.
Mr. Banks wasn’t even at his most electric, but it didn’t matter: the room carried him. There was noJuelz Santana, whose manic verse is crucial to the song’s success. No last-minute surprise appearance by the bossman 50 Cent. Just Mr. Banks, his muddled voice, that sinister beat and 10 tensed fingers, gripping tightly to the ladder so as not to fall back down.
Reflection Eternal: Talib Kweli & Hi-TekRevolutions Per Minute on Blacksmith/Warner Bros. arrives May 18.
'Revolutions Per Minute' tracklisting:
01. RPM's 02. Back Again ft. Res 03. City Playgrounds 04. Strangers ft. Bun B 05. In This World 06. Got Work (Fame) 07. Midnight Hour ft. Estelle 08. In the Red 09. Lift'in Off 10. Black Gold Intro (The Black Gold Countdown) 11. Ballad of the Black Gold 12. Just Begun ft. Jay Electronica, J. Cole and Mos Def 13. Long Hot Summer 14. Get Loose ft. Chester French 15. So Good 16. Ends ft. Bilal 17. Outro
Last night at New York City venue SOB’s, the Roc was definitely in the building. Performing to a sold-out crowd, Roc Nation’s own J. Cole ripped through cuts off his seminal mixtape The Warm Up and threw in a few surprises during his hourlong set, including guest appearances from Young Chris, Talib Kweli and Hi-Tek to help out on a few of their collaborations with the freshman emcee. With a crowd packed into the venue tighter than a shrunken pair of skinny jeans, the show was a taste of bigger things to come for the rapper, who’s readying his Roc Nation debut for release later this year.
With industry figures like Statik Selektah, Sha Money XL and Pill watching from V.I.P., J. Cole made his grand entrance to the stage at around 10:30 P.M., kicking off the show with a rendition of “Dollar & A Dream II” where the North Carolina emcee spit acapella before the DJ kicked the instrumental. Cole followed with “World is Empty” before addressing the crowd, reflecting on how he arrived to NYC seven years prior and caught a relatively unknown Kanye West play at the very same venue. Cue “Last Call,” which Cole destroyed before segueing into his “Dead Presidents II” freestyle, the centerpiece of his Warm Up tape.
Cole next brought out Young Chris as his first guest of the evening, bringing the on-wax magic of their collabo “Still the Hottest” alive on stage. “I Get Up” and “Losing My Balance” followed, with Cole pandering to the crowd by bigging up Queens and Brooklyn. “Dreams” and “Lights Please” came next, with the latter seeing the rapper spit over a naked keyboard melody before the beat crashed in and kicked the joint into full gear.
Once the beat for Talib Kweli’s “Get By” began booming through the speakers, Cole spit his verse from his freestyle before inviting Talib Kweli and DJ Hi-Tek on stage to do the original track, rocking the beat before performing their collaboration “Just Begun” off Reflection Eternal’s forthcoming sophomore album Revolutions Per Minute. But the highlight of the evening? Cole played some new shit for a song called “Who Dat,” a joint that began with an instrumental that sampled the same beat as Beanie Sigel’s song of the same name, with the instro cutting out to let Cole spit it acapella. The up-and-comer shut down the set with his verse from Wale’s “Beautiful Day” and “Grown Simba,” and by the end, the star that had only recently been born had truly begun to shine.
