Everyone has been dropping the ball lately. After a Change.org petition to replace Lady Gaga for the Super Bowl Halftime Show with the Atlanta hip-hop trio Migos reached a total of 69,475 signatures, guess who still played the Super Bowl Halftime Show? Lady Gaga.
She gave a tepid performance riddled with fake keytar-playing and, with the exception of “Just Dance,†it was … meh. Unlike what petition writer Justin G. suggested Erykah Badu join Migos and do, Gaga did not “hit Donald Trump with a FIRE 64 bars†either.
There was also no tribute to Prince, who destroyed the Super Bowl Halftime show in 2007 by playing “Purple Rain†in the freaking rain. It was legendary, but that’s beside the point.
Enter Beale Street Music Fest 2017. There is a disturbing lack of Migos on this list. Widespread Panic? Not Migos. Death Cab for Cutie? Not Migos. Soundgarden? Definitely not Migos. And it’s not 1996 (though “Spoonman†could be fun). Sure, in the hip-hop realm of things we have Snoop Dogg, Wiz Khalifa and Ludacris, but come on. While Snoop is obviously awesome, Wiz Khalifa is what 16-year-olds in Bartlett listen to after they smoke weed for the first time, and Ludacris is terrible live.
Trust me, I love Ludacris. I love him as an artist and an emcee, and I love the eccentric personality that compels him to craft so many beyond-raunchy punch lines. However, every time I’ve seen him perform, he does 30-second samples of his features on top 40 hits instead of performing his own material, and it’s lame. I’ve never seen him play anything off of the “1.21 Gigawatts†mixtape at Music Fest, and that mixtape is fire. Why not open with “Do Somethin’ Strange†this time?
We. Need. Migos. Now more than ever, Bluff City needs to hear the rumble of “Bad and Boujee†next to the Mississippi river and in unison scream “Rain drop, drop top,†while it’s actually raining because it’s Beale Street Music Fest, and it’s going to rain. We just need Migos.Â
I’m not paying $7 for a Bud Light to see Bush. Bush? At this point I would rather see George W. attempt stand-up comedy than see the band Bush perform at Beale Street Music Fest. Last year, I wrote BSMF “abandoned butt-rock for the age of singer-songwriters.†Now, much like Star Wars Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back, butt-rock strikes back … with Bush.
Last year, we got to see the wonderful Paul Simon and the only logical way to follow that up is to book Migos. Quavo, Takeoff and Offset are the songbirds of our generation, and “Versace†is basically “The Sound of Silence.†“Wishy Washy†is basically “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard.†Actually, the amount of times they say the word “Versace†in “Versace†is equal to the amount of artists I would pick off of the 2017 Beale Street Music Fest lineup to see Migos perform.
I mean … I’m still going, though.
