After 3 long hours of waiting with no opening acts, the only thing to help the restless crowd regain their energy was DJ Drewbyrd dropping Kendrick’s “m.A.A.d. city” record in his short set before Dom Kennedy finally hit the stage.
Repping for the west but showing the east side love, Dom sported a NY Rangers jersey and W$TGT$ beanie (West Side Get The Money, if you couldn’t figure that out).
Even though it was the Yellow Album tour, fans in the audience seemed to be more excited when Dom played tracks from his older mixtapes, The Original Dom Kennedy and From The Westside With Love, such as “1997” and “Designer Shit”.
But he OPM repper kept the Yellow Album tracks coming too, from “5.0 Conversations” to “Been Thuggin” to “1:25” to “Girls On Stage” (a fan favorite) to “PG Click”, for which he brought out his OPM counterpart Niko G4 to perform his verse. The rest of the clique followed shortly after to kick some hits from their recently released Young Nation Vol. 1 mixtape. For some newcomers, Niko, Jay 305, and Zeke all put on a good show. One thing about this whole crew – damn, they make some good beat selections. The beat for Niko’s “Can I” had the whole crowd bouncing.
In between performances of other Yellow Album tracks, like We Ball – Dom let the crowd rap Kendrick’s verse along with him, and Gold Alpinas – some concert-goers tried to run through Rozay’s verse but got cut short – Dom got real with the crowd. He introduced his DJ, Drewbyrd, and let everyone know that their mission on this tour is to inspire. Inspire the listeners, yeah, but they also want to inspire artists to make “doper music”. They can try to outshine the OPM crew, but it’ll be tough…the words dope and Dom Kennedy go hand in hand.
Although the show ended earlier than the fans were hoping for, everyone was truly just grateful for the opportunity to finally see one of their favorite West Coast MC’s put on for their city. Come back again soon, Dom – you’re always welcome in the city that doesn’t sleep!
Kaitlin Stevens
(@kaytiimontana)
Photo Credit: Marissa Carter (@CinderellaMYC)
