On March 27th, Trinity College held a “Students for Scholarship” benefit concert featuring Fabolous, Juelz Santana, and Mike Jones. All proceeds from the concert, which was open to all community members with a valid student ID, were to be donated to a scholarship for a student from the greater Hartford area. While the crowd turnout was much lower than the promoters may have expected, leaving almost a thousand empty seats in the Koeppel Community Sports Center, the students in attendance were treated to an evening of enjoyable mainstream rap.
Held in a hockey rink, the promoters clearly had invested a lot of money in creating a quality performance space. A full stage with a black backdrop and a full light show filled the arena with colors and strobe effects, and, except for some slight clipping on the vocal mic, the sound quality was consistently high. However, the high production values were reflected in the $33 dollar ticket price, which likely prohibited many less fortunate students from attending. The audience was made up mostly of white males in jerseys and polos, and while the organizers had seating for about one thousand spectators, the entire crowd was concentrated into a dancefloor area in front of the stage. Hopefully the organizers did not lose money on the event, as financial aid is especially important at Trinity, a school often maligned for its perceived lack of diversity.
An early highlight of the show was a performance by Trinity senior Zee Santiago. A founder of the Temple of Hip-Hop: Trinity Chapter, Santiago performed some original rap songs with an affable, easygoing confidence that was undeterred by the bigger names at the top of the bill or the small crowd. Especially of note was “Walk in My Shoes,” which featured guest vocals from Daryl Wells, a former Trinity student. Well’s powerful and emphatic hook propelled the song, and his stage presence was formidable for someone only in his second year of college. Note to any readers out there with industry connections––get these guys some real management, now.
Following Santiago’s set, Houston’s Mike Jones took the stage wearing a backpack––the first of many playful barbs the rappers shared with the college crowd. Despite being the lowest billed big-time artist of the evening, Jones had his fair share of diehard fans and held down the stage for 40 minutes without the aid of a hype man. He was relaxed, almost laconic, delivering his raps with a wry smile on his face. “What’s the best part about Connecticut?” he asked in between songs. Before the crowd could answer, he grinned and yelled “MIKE JONES!” to a rapturous response. He also made sure to reach all members of his audience, slowing things down for the ladies with “Next To You.” While the Houston hip-hop boom seems to have declined in recent years, neither Jones nor Trinity students seemed to know or care, and the set breezed by all too quickly.
Juelz Satana took the stage after a too-long set by a local DJ, flanked by a massive posse that filled the entire stage, including three hype men that did not contribute much to the show besides the traditional hype man shtick of rapping along on key verses. However, Santana did not have to rely on anyone but himself––when the DJ’s turntable broke, Santana laughed it off and kept the show going with several minutes of flawless a cappella verses. “Is it about time?” he cracked to his DJ before launching into “Clockwork.” Santana also took a jab at the predominantly privileged audience by saying, “Yo Connecticut, where we’re from, we make our money a little differently. You gotta hustle.” However, Santana had found a perfect audience in the Trinity students, who knew all of the words to his hits and proved it by rapping back and forth to each other, especially on hits like “There It Go (The Whisper Song).”
As for Fabolous, I’ll let the man speak for himself: “Yo ma, I got you stuck off the realness/The names Fabolous, you heard I be/In them trucks wit the wheels glissed/In v.i.p, with buckets of chilled cris/click, click, who the fuck wanna feel this/I still got them blocks movin/and the system in my truck/That can make it feel like the blocks movin/My 6-4s, wit the wheels and the shocks movin/Them boys in blue with the shields and the glocks movin/(you cant deny it) Im the same ol g/The guc frames got the same gold g.” For those in the audience who just wanted to grind to beats, Fabolous did not disappoint. But to those who like their rap with a nice dose of street braggadocio and virtuosity, Fabolous proved to be the best MC of the night.
The Students for Scholarship show felt like the best high school dances, with good feelings and good energy all around. The event was not perfect: it was under-attended, expensive, and featured several artists who could be considered past their prime. However, the show remained laid-back and enjoyable throughout the evening. The students in attendance didn’t give a damn about anything except letting loose, and, in that regard, the show was a resounding success. When asked for their opinion on the concert, Becky L. and Blake J., two first-year students who drove all the way from Conn College in New London, simply shouted “Mike Jones!” at the top of their lungs. Later, they found me in the crowd, and said, “We’d like to amend our quotation. Just say we think the show is “breathtaking.”