Jay - Z Concert feat T.I.

"Push.. Money over Broads You got It______ Bush" If you want to know what was said, look at the pic below, and look and see what finger the chick is holding up on the right side of the pic...

The weekend started off great with a visit back to my old high school for our Homecoming game in which we won. The very next day, I travelled back to my other Alma mater, the University of Virginia, for the highly anticipated Jay-Z Concert. Highly anticipated for a number of reasons: One being that its Jay-Z (duh), and secondly this is his first EVER concert in Virginia... now we all know that he used to "Work" down in VA back in the day, but lets say this was his first legal tour here in the great election battleground state of Virginia (Obama '08).

The Concert was held at the John Paul Jones Arena, which has quickly become a venue of choice for larger acts coming to the Virginia Area. As we slowly approached the basketball area, we caught a glimpse of this mob of people running up the hill to get in this gigantic line to get it. We thought that the line was for those who didn't have pre-paid parking like we did, but no... this was the actual line to get into the JPJ Arena. Needless to say, we ended up staying in this swarm of people (I can't call it a line because there was no line system at all) for at least 20 minutes.

Because of the long wait to enter the JPJ, I missed Santogold's opening act. I did end up getting into the Arena in time to see that she was indeed wearing something from Urban outfitters, and her background singers/dancers had on shiny gold tights and nylon jackets. I really do hope Santogold has some type of contract with Urban Outfitters, or maybe she is a spokesperson for Hipsters United..

Anyways, I walk into the Arena and immediately saw people from high school and college - more high school friends than the previous night at homecoming, and I can only imagine that all the UVA alum that came back for the concert will not be at homecoming next weekend. After saying my hellos, the lights go off and its time for T.I (and TIP). There is never a dull moment when T.I. is on stage. His energy is ridiculous, and he performs all of his songs as if his life depended on it.. as if he is on his way to jail or something.. oh wait....

There must be alot of haters that allegedly hate on T.I. because he was sure to inform us of all of his haters and motivators and many of his songs were in tribute to such haters.. In any case, I loved his performance and I am was glad that "Whatever you Like" didn't sound awkward when he was singing like it was on the MTV Music Awards... Big up to TI for wearing a UVA hat as well!

So its time for Jay-Z, and I already had a inclination that I wold be seeing the same set at what I saw a couple months ago at the Africa Rising Festival, and essentially I was correct. I loved his performance last night much better though, because the sound system was 100 times better, and the energy of the crowd was more in tune to Hip Hop than at Africa Rising... I can't even name all the songs he did, and I could only start naming a few songs that he didn't do that I wanted to hear (Allure, Can't Knock the Hustle, Sunshine, Who You Wit, etc.).

He was trying to smooth his set out, and almost performed "Excuse Me Miss", but apparently someone in the audience didn't know how to cool it out, so Jay cut that song out and went to Song Cry... He threatened to shorten his set, and the cameraman panned in to Jay's foot to show the paper taped the stage.. These shoes he had on.... SICK!!! They were some black and white Dunks, and the square around the check was a black and white plaid... I have seen the blue and red ones similar to this, but never the black and white ones... I was in total shock when I saw the shoes so I couldn't get my camera out in time..

The biggest surprise was to see DJ AM on stage the whole concert! I thought it was him initially, but I thought that surely he wouldn't be touring around after being in a plane crash and suffering life threatening burns less than a month ago.... but it was really him!

To look in the audience and see a large array of cultures in one arena for a hip hop concert was a bit surreal, but of course it made me think about whats gonna happen when Obama wins the election and narrow minded people have to live and face the facts that You don't have to be a white man to run the US, and you can still be cool even when people think you're a Muslim.. Oh yeah, please believe I scanned the arena the whole time to make sure the N word didn't slip out of anyone's mouth that "shouldn't" say it (although I don't think anyone should say the word regardless of who "owns" it or not... thats another convo that won't be had here thanks.)

OK, so when can we expect a tour with Jay Z and Beyonce together? And could that concert not cost $400 in this time of economic crisis please?!?! Start workin' on that one Jigga