Fucking in the Streets

Lil Wayne and T-Pain
at KeyArena

If it’s been a while since you went to Key-
Arena to see a bona
fide chart-dominating pop star—in this case, Lil Wayne,
self-anointed Best Rapper Alive, for his modestly named I Am Music
tour—be warned: The place turns into the biggest, gaudiest,
most terrifying high school (or maybe vocational college) ever: the
endless looping hallway with kids lined up at the concession stands in
barely-not-screaming clusters, the arena itself lit up between acts and
looking like an especially flashy pep rally.

The pep-rally effect was only aided by T-Pain’s opening set, a
circus-themed affair with krumping, miming clowns, fire dancers,
stilt walkers, a contortionist, and, of course, midgets (including
a stripping midget Britney Spears), but that included T-Pain singing
(rather than just choreographed dancing along to his own songs) for
only about a fifth of its running time. But, you know, it’s
T-Pain—everyone is here for the big Auto-Tuned hooks, the hats,
the midgets, the circus—who the hell cares if he can sing?
(Although he took pains to point out that he, in fact, can sing.)

Reviews of Lil Wayne’s live shows give the impression that they tend
to be either fire-breathing, crowd-slaying triumphs or weed-addled,
half-assed rambles. Sunday’s show wasn’t the relentless,
cough-syrup-savant freestyle that one may have hoped for (I realized
last night that mixtapes, not live concerts, are the medium for Lil
Wayne fans who geek out more over his lyrics than his abs). Wayne’s
backing rock band, who played on perilously dangling platforms
suspended from the ceiling that raised and lowered throughout the
night, sometimes drowned out his raspy rapping with some throwaway
guitar solo, and his ADD set meant that a few songs got only one
chorus or verse, if that. (After hyping the crowd to the opening bars
of “Swagga Like Us” as part of a “feature-off” with T-Pain, who had
rolled out on a Segway for the contest to see who had the most/best
guest appearances of 2008, Wayne informed the crowd that he had so much
swagger, he didn’t even have to do a verse, and the song promptly
stopped.) Still, the show was more on the on-fire side than not
(speaking of fire, Wayne, every bit the rock star, had mad pyrotechnic
plumes flaming up throughout his set, culminating with him shooting
a motherfucking flame thrower toward the crowd).

Wayne is a perfectly goofy and fun and talented performer, and
despite interludes to introduce his Young Money associates (including
Degrassi High actor/rapper Drake), duet with Keri Hilson, sit
and play guitar and mumble like an instantly blind bluesman, and give
his DJ a break, the hour-and-a-half set never really lagged. And the
closing one-two punch of “Lollipop” (which actually sounded pretty good
live, even after radio flogged it to death) and the unstoppable “A
Milli” (crowd screaming punch lines: “Orville Redenbacher!”
“Goblin!”) was inspired even if it was also expected. Lil Wayne
left the stage (via trapdoor, naturally) to a clip of the TV show
Martin followed by The Bodyguard‘s “I Will Always Love
You,” a perfectly idiosyncratic exit for the world-conqueringly weird
rapper.