By: Neil MacAlister
Recently UBC held its Welcome Back Barbecue, and, along with a group of artists I’d honestly never heard of (apologies to the Strange, Harrison Brome, Shaun Frank, and Vanic), New York rapper Joey Bada$$ performed.
Joey Bada$$ is one of modern hip hop’s most acclaimed lyricists, a 22-year-old artist who bases his sound in the East Coast’s boom bap history. After debuting with the mixtape 1999 in 2012 (which might still be my favourite project of his), he’s gone on to receive international attention. His last album, All-Amerikkkan Badass (AABA), is one of 2017’s most critically-acclaimed projects.
After getting through the long entrance lineup — and the even longer beer garden lineup — I managed to arrive just in time for Joey to appear on stage. Much of his set consisted, predictably, of tracks from AABA, beginning with “Land of the Free.” The melodic, radio-ready “Temptation” followed, before transitioning into the impassioned album-opener “For My People.” AABA is a highly political, relentlessly hard-hitting album, and this translated incredibly onstage. He brought a confident, stage-ready energy that not many his age could pull off.
After the trio of thoughtful openers, Joey dove right into the meat of his album, jumping around to his ScHoolboy Q-assisted “Rockabye Baby” and the Beast Coast posse cut “Ring the Alarm.” Joey seemed surprised at the level of excitement in the audience, proclaiming more than once “I wasn’t expecting this shit, y’all is lit tonight” and engaging the crowd in call-and-response chants of “Pro Era Era, Pro Era Era Era.”
The show did have its moments of lower energy thoughtfulness. Most notably when Joey surprised the crowd with a song that, according to him, doesn’t often get played live: AABA’s final track, “Amerikkkan Idol,” which features some of Joey’s most powerful writing to date.
Luckily for longtime fans, the setlist included some older music from his first studio album, 2015’s B4.Da.$$: “Christ Conscious,” “No.99,” and the DJ Premier-assisted “Paper Trail$” all got their due time onstage. I was worried he was going to leave out his old catalogue, but he did take the time for one track from his early mixtape days: “Survival Tactics,” his first hit single, which features the late Capital Steez. Steez, a remarkably gifted MC who co-founded Joey’s Pro Era collective, tragically took his own life in 2012, shortly before his group really took off; ever since, Pro Era has been sure to make his memory an integral part of their music.
Towards the end, Joey surprised the crowd one more time with a new track: “Pull Up,” which apparently features a guest verse from Flatbush Zombies’ Meechy Darko. The track is sure to be an instant hit when it finally gets released. He ended the show with “Devastated,” his biggest hit to date and a perfect high-energy finale to an incredible show. Joey was only on for about an hour, but his energy and excellent stage presence made it totally worth the ticket price.
