Live Hip-Hop Performances from 2016 That Echo Through 2020
“Just don’t be one of these people that’s surprised that black folks got issues. Them the people I can’t deal with. I’d rather talk to somebody that don’t agree with me than somebody that’s had they eyes closed. “Hey, did you know black people– Why are black people angry?” M — — F— — , we been angry! This ain’t new! You think this just happened last couple of years? Black folks been trying to tell y’all forever that they had some issues and we sad– WE INVENTED THE BLUES…You wanna know what black folks feeling? Just listen to their music. Our music tell you everything that’s going on in the black psyche. It’s a beautifu telegram. ” (Roy Wood Jr., Father Figure)
At the time, 2016 felt hot. The Black Lives Matter protest movement hit stride, Colin Kaepernick started taking a knee, and the United States was trying to figure out what to do with a political climate that felt especially chaotic.
All that seems like kindling these days. The intensity of everything we were facing back then has been cranked up across the board, and a handful of preventable scientific catastrophes are gasoline on the fire.
“Music is the medicine, medicine is in the music” DJ Maseo of De La Soul
To make matters worse, pandemic life is depriving us of key tools that helped us through those previously difficult times. The risks of gathering in large groups have birthed intimate virtual performances from artists of all stripes, but we can no longer rely on blockbuster musical events where artists can tap into the power of spectacle to fill us with comfort and persistence.
For all its tumult, 2016 gifted us some powerful musical performances that still echo through today. They may not speak to us in exactly the same way that they did in real-time, but they do provide a medicine and perspective that we could all use a bit of right about now.
2.15.16 ~ Kendrick Lamar ~ Medly at the 58th Grammy Awards
With a head-fake and an okey-doke befitting a grand musical stage second only to the Superbowl Halftime Show, Kendrick had everyone anticipating a digestible thought piece. Then he proceeded to blow the bowties and sequins off of everyone in the Staples Center.
That’s not to say Lamar didn’t give audiences something to think about. Starting The Blacker The Berry, which is his commentary on Trayvon Martin’s murder, he then transitions with Puffy’s “As we proceed to give you what you need…” refrain from The Notorious B.I.G.’s Who Shot Ya?, before continuing to draw a nonlinear throughline connecting Slavery to the current carceral state.
Astutely, Lamar shows an awareness of his place in this narrative. The inclusion of Alright into the set fits perfectly as it had become an unofficial anthem of the protest movement. And the final image of Compton pinned to the middle of the African Continent unambiguously punctuates the performance.
In a venue like this, it would have been easy to cash in on the currency of Black pain. But by weaving in artistic elements from African and Black American culture, Lamar deserves special credit for choosing to powerfully elevate Black Hope and Black Power.
6.26.16 ~ Beyonce ft. Kendrick Lamar ~ ‘Freedom’ at the BET Awards
Truth be told, this is the third-best version of Freedom. It lacks the intricate sophistication of the original from Lemonade, which includes both audio and visuals that are meaningfully layered. And everything from the Homecoming performance at Coachella is undefeated, so this BET Awards version has to be content with just making the medal podium.
The unabashed intensity that Beyonce and Lamar bring to this performance at times obliterate the subtleties of the song, but in so doing they manage to embody how “whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges,” which is imagery from the same section of MLK’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech that we hear as Beyonce and her dancers take the stage, but that is rarely ever quoted on MLK Day.
9.17.16 ~ Lecrae ~ Untitled spoken word at the BET HipHop Awards
Lecrae has earned his way onto platforms in the rap world that no other “Christian” rapper before him was able to gain access to. For years he managed to keep one foot planted in the upper echelon of the hip-hop world, with the other set in the Evangelical Christian community where he got his start. But as Lecrae started speaking out against racial injustice and its embeddedness in political power structures, the balancing act became difficult to maintain. His activism was a bridge too far for evangelicals and as pushback from them intensified he lost his footing altogether and fell into a darkness that he’s now come out of and talks about at length in his recently released album and book.
That tension is evident in Lecrae’s appearance at the BET HipHop awards. The thing about attempting to bridge two groups that see the world so differently is that eventually, you can lose yourself trying to be all things to all people. That’s one of the challenges that make being the most popular black man in the white evangelical world an incredibly lonely island to live on.
11.13.16 ~ Dave Chappelle (monologue) and A Tribe Called Quest (‘We the People’)~ SNL
The 2016 Election was a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency event that brought both Dave Chappelle and A Tribe Called Quest out of retirement and into Studio 8H at 30 Rockefeller Plaza for some live television magic. The performances provided a shared cathartic occasion that clarified the moment and took the first steps toward confronting our new reality head-on.
Aside from Omorosa and what now appears naive optimism to close his set, Chappelle’s reflections are largely still applicable as we approach another presidential election. And ATCQ’s ‘We The People’ (which had been recorded six months prior) hits like a prophecy fulfilled and an anthem of defiance for the present.
11.19.16 ~ The Cast of Hamilton ~ Post-show Address to Mike Pence
12.15.16 ~ Black Thought, Busta Rhymes & Joel Ortiz ~ My Shot (Hamilton Mixtape Version) on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
Two weeks after the election, Mike Pence made his way to Broadway to take in Hamilton. In an alternate reality perhaps, his appearance could have been an act of diplomacy and outreach to “diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us”. But in reality, the victory lap felt more like an antagonistic flex and as such was not received well by the rest of the audience that night.
The cast of the show, however, used the opportunity to address the Vice President-Elect directly with the “hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us.”
It was another step in the evolution of how Hamilton is perceived. From plucky outsider to smash hit to touring force to Disney darling, there is a constant negotiation about what the show is saying and to who.
On Dec 2, the Hamilton Mixtape project was released, which included songs from the musical performed by various artists. While some tracks were slightly modified covers, others were reshaped to more directly confront racial injustice.
Because of the nature of the project, few live performances of the songs materialized. Perhaps the most spirited instance occurred on The Tonight Show, which is unsurprising because Busta Rhymes tends to bring a flamboyant aesthetic sense of urgency any time he takes the stage.
In contrast to the emphasis that the original My Shot places on Hamilton’s individual desire to prove himself and craft a society full of potential, the Mixtape version is much more a communal call to reclaim the promise of that original vision. Whereas Lin-Manuel Miranda delivered an inspirational performance, Black Thought and Busta Rhymes deliver a rallying cry that gets you ready to run through a wall and onto the streets in just under four and a half minutes.
Intense times birth powerful art. It can take the passage of time to fully understand the process and the product, but the pattern is there. At some point it will be interesting to look back at 2020 with an appreciation for what was created during this period.
