In a performance originally slated for January, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie finally had room in his increasingly busy schedule to get back to VanCity and cause a little ruckus at the Rio Theatre on Broadway.
Showing up to the East Vancouver venue a little ahead of schedule, the audience made itself known early by managing to have the independent theatre on a police-initiated "lockdown" before the show even started, on the evening of April 10.
Much like Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, anyone who was asked to leave the venue early allegedly responded to security’s request by physically fighting their way out of the building. After three such fights reportedly rolled out of the front doors and into the street, the Rio decided a police intervention was justified.
With a number of squad cars and police vans lining the facade of the theatre, one of the officers announced that there would be nobody allowed into the rap concert and nobody permitted out for a short while. After eventually gaining entrance with precisely enough time to find a seat and be told that liquor sales were no longer an option, the rest of the evening’s proceedings went off in a trouble-free manner.
The “overnight sensation” out of the Bronx is very much rooted in the “Generation Z” style of melodic-pop rap. With the occasional flashy R&B-style hook that some argue is lacking in most rap and contemporary music at the moment, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie (real name J. Dubose) landed his EP TBA in at number 32 on the Rolling Stone list of 40 Best Rap Albums of 2016.
The Drake style of hip-hop does not typically appeal to this reviewer, however, it’s safe to say that the “Macaroni” rapper may be the exception to this personal rule. Best known for the brag-along anthem “My Shit,” the rapper’s recorded material verges on falling under the broad “meh” umbrella, but, admittedly, the 21-year-old’s live sound and show, in general, was powerful.
Having all of the energy one expects from someone Dubose’s age, he surprisingly managed to maintain vocal clarity while telegraphing sincerity in his emotions; a quality that many performers never completely grasp (let alone at such a young age).
Having gone from being a local New York sensation to experiencing millions of SoundCloud downloads in a short duration of time, the Highbridge Label artist is yet to release a traditional full-length LP. With just two mixtapes (one of which is collaborative) and an EP to his name, A Boogie has an admittedly brief lineup of “hits” to leverage off of. Fortunately for the Rio’s feature performer Monday night, most of what he has released is gobbled up by peers and fans in and around his age, and, from the top of A Boogie’s set to the tail, most verses were emphatically sung along to by the crowd.
Playing everything A Boogie fan would show up to see, the TBA vocalist opened up with “Ransom” followed by 2016’s “I Still Think About You” from the Artist mixtape. Later in the set, A Boogie did away with his blue jacket-vest and geared down predictably to a starched-white hoodie while introducing his next track. Despite his adorable name, A Boogie displayed his youth and lack of decent snuggle-partner by introing his track “Friend Zone” with the statement “fuck, the friend-zone.”
The former Drake opener performed his biggest hit on record, “My Shit”, earlier in his set than expected, dropping it roughly halfway through his hour-long appearance on stage. Also, included in the young talent’s setlist, in no particular order, was “1hunnid,” “Money Over Everything,” “Timeless,” “Fall In Love,” “Baecation,” and “Wrong Nigga.”
Being grossly over the average age of attendees and sporting a freshly broken clavicle could have been a bad recipe for the evening, but not since seeing Pell perform live at Pemberton has an opinion of a rising hip-hop star improved so rapidly for this writer. With nothing but heat coming off of A Boogie, look for his upcoming mixtape ARToven to be out sometime in 2017.
