Review: Joey Bada$$ flatters to deceive in Birmingham
Way back when hip-hop first rose to prominence in what is now considered the golden age of the genre; the early 90s, the popularity of rappers was based mainly on their street cred. Cut to 2015 and street cred is almost completely replaced by the importance of online presence. Brooklyn rapper Joey Bada$$ has crowned himself the leader of his Pro Era; a crew of rappers, producers and general creative types that have risen to prominence through being rather on point when it comes to social networks.
Pro Era set out to celebrate and hark back to early 90s hip hop; in particular the street-wise story-telling of gangsta rap and the jazzy-sampling of the Native Tongues rap movement. They have continued in this vein ever since Joey Bada$$ dropped his debut mixtape ‘1999’.
2015 has seen Joey release his major label debut B4.DA.$$ and tonight he’s stopping off in Birmingham as part of his ‘World Domination’ tour bringing along with him Pro Era cohorts CJ Fly and Nyck Caution. Nyck Caution warms up the crowd nicely with beats leaning more towards the popular sounds of modern rap (trap and grime) which indicates that he might well be keen to leave behind the nostalgia-obsession that his peers revel in.
CJ Fly isn’t met with as much of a warm response from the crowd. His lyrics mostly fall back on tired slogans about smoking weed and hating police that have been done a thousand times over and a thousand times better. He frequently shouts out members of the crowd who have decided to spark up joints in the venue and blames the lack of response to his music being down to the strength of the weed.
The on-stage DJ keeps things interesting between each live act playing a quick succession of crowd-pleasing pop-rap tracks which are met with the most response from the crowd all night – especially tunes from Future, Drake and A$AP Rocky. The latter resulting in a circle pit. So it’s no doubt that the crowd are here to party. The only thing with Joey Bada$$ and the other Pro Era rappers is that the music they make isn’t designed to whip crowds up into frenzies. It’s a lot more wordy and slow-paced.
Despite this fact, Joey Bada$$ bounds onstage and brings a ferocious chemistry to cuts from his debut album that help translate them from being headphone music to being fierce enough to fill venues. He spits and barks his lyrics like its the last time he’ll be able to say them. The stage is a big one to fill; even for a five piece band but Joey Bada$$ manages to touch down on each corner of the stage at least once throughout the course of his set. His energy is infectious but despite him giving it his all from start to finish, none of the tunes resonate enough to be memorable.
So Joey Bada$$ is almost the complete package; he has the looks, he has the following and he truly believes in the words that he raps but the words and the beats that back them up mean nothing to anyone else besides him. The crowd is large in numbers so lots of people want to see Joey Bada$$ in the flesh but are any of them listening? For a rapper who has rose to fame and fortune through well managed content for Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter perhaps he doesn’t need people to listen.
The whole night sadly feels underwhelming; it’s billed as part of the ‘World Domination’ tour but judging from the crowd’s reaction tonight; the world doesn’t belong to Pro Era. It belongs to their peers Future, Drake, Kendrick Lamar and Skepta. All whom Pro Era’s in-house DJ dropped in his inbetween act sets. Unless Joey Bada$$ can step it up musically, it looks as though he’ll be over-taken by another good-looking, social-networking savvy rapper that has the tunes to back up the boast.
