Universal Media Group and Mass Appeal started off advertising week with a bang, with the Music Is Universal Hip-Hop Showcase at Irving Plaza.
The show featured Pusha T, Dave East and Ski Mask The Slump God. The original lineup featured Nas but due to unforeseeable circumstances he couldn’t make it, and Pusha T was able to fill the spot.
Ski Mask opened the show with his popular high-energy song, “Catch Me Outside” and was dancing across the stage without shoes. The crowd was unfamiliar with his music and it was noticeable, since most of his fans are younger than the 21+ crowd in attendance. Even though it was tough for the crowd to vibe with Ski Mask, he was persistent in his attempt to get the best out of them. He also performed “Where’s The Blow”, “Babywipe” and “Take a Step Back”. By the end of his twenty-minute set the crowd was ready for the next artist.
Next was Dave East, the hometown artist that a majority of the audience was looking forward to see. He started off his set with his album title track “Paranoia”. It was very intimate since the stage lights were turned off when he came out rapping and the only thing visible were the lights from different phones and cameras. He didn’t do much talking and went straight into two other songs from his 2016 album, Kari Chanel, which were “Don Pablo” and “Type of Time”.
Pusha T was the new headliner, which was a last minute change, but his performance felt well prepared as he was ready to get the audience moving. He opened his set with his popular verse from “Don’t Like.” The crowd rapped his lyrics back to him and this would stay consistent throughout his performance. He was going back and forth with performing songs from his past two albums, My Name Is My Name and King Push. Then he went into his bag of notable feature verses that he has on popular songs such as, “So Appaled”, “Runaway” and “Mercy”. Pusha T took us back when he performed “Grindin” which is a song from his Clipse days that will never get old. Ski Mask was even showing his appreciation towards Pusha T and his music, getting on stage with him and being his hype man by just dancing around and enjoying his performance. To close out his thirty-minute performance, Pusha T reminded the audience that G.O.O.D. Music is still making good music. He also told the audience that his upcoming album is produced top to bottom by Kanye West. That was a great way to close out the show since there has been a lot of speculation on when his album will be dropping.
The event was presented by Mass Appeal and 1800 Tequila.
