After years of feuding, Kanye (now Ye) and Drake have officially squashed their “beef.” The two behemoth rap stars came together for a concert at the Los Angeles Coliseum to raise awareness and support for Larry Hoover, who is surviving multiple life sentences as the former gang leader of the Gangster Disciples, a street gang in Chicago.
That said, what we ended up getting was less awareness being raised and more Kanye and Drake just having a good time performing their hits. The only time the show raised awareness of Larry Hoover’s imprisonment conditions was prior to the event, and it wasn’t from Kanye or Drake. If you were watching live from the beginning, (like I was) there was a woman off-camera caught by an ambient mic pleading with the crowd for compassion:
“Larry Hoover was a man who made a mistake. When one person goes to prison, their entire family goes with them. Take out of your mind everything that you have read.”
That’s it. That’s all we got about Mr. Hoover. And then, we continued to wait for the show to start.
The Amazon-sponsored event was set to start at 8 p.m. PT—but did not start until 9:30 p.m. PT.
The opening act was the Sunday Service Choir, which was shocking considering earlier this year Kanye was sued by the choir in a class-action lawsuit totaling $30 million in damages, citing mistreatment and unpaid wages. But it seems they squared all that away (or at least, some of them did) because they were front and center at the beginning of the show.
The choir reworked popular hits “Ready or Not” by Lauryn Hill, “Easy on Me” by Adele and “Back to Life” by Soul II Soul. Then, they performed the now legendary “Ultralight Beam” before the stars of the show entered.
Kanye and Drake came out together, decked out in expensive-ass #FreeLarryHoover merch from head to toe as “Praise God” from Donda played across the coliseum.
Kanye then walked on the “mound” in the middle of the coliseum by himself and went on to perform damn near every single classic from the “Old Kanye.” Songs included: “Jesus Walks,” “All Falls Down,” “Gold Digger,” “Touch the Sky,” “Stronger,” “All of the Lights,” “Good Life, “I Wonder” and “Runaway.”
Hell, he even performed one of Drake’s songs, “Find Your Love,” which was produced by Kanye.
After almost an hour of Kanye doing his solo thing, Drake came on stage to join him as the two performed “Can’t Tell Me Nothing.”
I can’t lie, I was moved. Seeing Kanye perform all of the old hits that made fans fall in love with him in the first place was amazing and nostalgic—even though Kanye couldn’t remember most of his lyrics. As a result, we expected the same from @champagnepapi. That was a mistake.
After Drake bodied a beautiful cover of Kanye’s “24,” he went on to perform a bunch of his “new shit.” Fans, including myself, were not happy. They let out their frustrations on Twitter:
“Why did we get the old Kanye, but the new Drake,” one user wrote online.
As you can see, many fans online weren’t happy with Drake’s song choices. Kanye set us up; we thought Drake was going to take us on a trip down memory lane. What we didn’t know was that the trip was only going back a couple of months ago when Drake released Certified Lover Boy.
Drake performed songs like “No Friends in the Industry,” “What’s Next,” “Girls Want Girls,” “Way 2 Sexy,” “Knife Talk,” and many other “new hits.”
Don’t worry, Kanye came back to save the day and performed more hits like “Hurricane,” “Bound 2,” and “Father Stretch My Hands Pt 1” before Drake came back onstage for the two to perform his songs “Forever” together.
They then walked together off the mound as the credits started to roll for the live event.
While many people enjoyed this, where was the mention of Larry Hoover? I bet you forgot about him, didn’t you? The whole point of this show was to raise awareness about prison reform and Mr. Hoover, yet neither of the two artists mentioned his name once. How did this help?
I guess the $400 merch was enough.
In any case, organizations such as Ex-Cons for Community and Social Change, Hustle 2.0, and the Uptown People’s Law Center stand to benefit from the show, according to USA Today.
Perhaps the money will do all of the talking.