Musings

Why am I blogging now after not having done so for so long, you ask? Well, because I am trying to convince myself to work out and sometimes I have the bad habit of finding all kinds of other things that I need to do first (homework is never included here...that usually gets done after the exercise). I realized I hadn't blogged in a while, and what better time than now.

Exactly two weeks ago to the day, Chester and I went and saw Lady Sovereign at the Varsity Theater in Dinkytown. He had picked up a City Pages and found an interesting article about her, so we decided to check out some of her music online. The video we saw was for "Love Me or Hate Me", which I was intrigued by (in part because she is a white, 20-year old female British authentic-as-they-come rapper who has a bit of an odd, honky, yet agreeable voice) and proceeded to watch over and over. After discovering that we could score some tickets for $13 (even managing to avoid the outrageous Ticketmaster charges!), we decided to see the advertised concert.

The problem? Neither of us had ever been to a rap show. I spent some time worrying about what to wear and if we would stick out like sore thumbs. It turned out that this time could have been spent working out (see above), as the crowd appeared to be mostly college kids checking out the cheap show.

In short, the show was great. We arrived just after the first artist, in time to soak up the energy of the crowd and hear her DJ warm up for about 10 minutes. I'm normally no rap fan by any means, but even he was talented. In her songs and in the talking she did between the songs, she was clever, funny and sharp without being vulgar and annoying (I can't help but say here that Borat comes to mind). The combination of the sound quality of the Varsity Theater and her apparent talent for live performance did not disappoint.

Sometimes it pays to step out of your normal box and do something different. Check out her video on my myspace profile if you're interested.