On Friday, Albuquerque’s Sunshine Theater welcomed rapper Hopsin to perform for a crowd of dedicated fans and other hip hop fanatics. The line to get in went around the block and had people from all walks of life coming to see the show.
Along with Hopsin, there were two other acts that would take the stage that night — the young rapper Token and Joyner Lucas. The theater became packed even before Token took the stage. Most in the audience came for Hopsin, but got a pleasant surprise with Token’s performance.
Token performed with youthful energy that fired up the crowd and got them involved in his performance, despite his relatively new fame. He just recently turned 18, and with his stage presence, energy and enthusiasm, one might have thought him to be a veteran rapper.
It was apparent that those who are a part of the hip hop culture knew his name, rapping his hooks back to him at certain points. Token had only gained fame a year ago with his YouTube videos, but it was obvious he was a rap prodigy — having an artist’s songs sung back to them proves a loyal fanbase.
The next act was Joyner Lucas, a veteran rapper with savage tendencies. His performance definitely took audience participation in a new direction. His smooth verses and double-time rhythms earned him wild cheers with the heavy backing tracks from his DJ.
Joyner put on an impressive performance with improvised verse between songs and a charismatic stage presence. Despite his aggressive delivery, he got ravenous applause.
The third and final act was the man the audience had come for, the legendary rapper Hopsin. Known for his white eye contact lenses and rage-filled, sarcastic verses, Hopsin’s character has a reputation of being intense and angry. I thought this was the case when he came on stage after a lot of hype and freebies that were tossed out into the crowd.
Hopsin started out with tracks from his most recent record, “Pound Syndrome,” and then verses from his most recognized work, “Raw.” But the performance and crowd enthusiasm were short-lived as Hopsin began to complain about the stage’s sound monitors.
Sunshine Theater is known for not having the best acoustics, and I thought this is what Hopsin was complaining about. Hopsin threw down the microphone and stormed off stage, in what the audience thought was a simple tantrum.
Eager to get the performer back on stage, the crowd began to jeer at the sound engineers for thinking that they weren’t doing their job. Try as they might, the engineers couldn’t fix the problem and it seemed that the show was over as many people began to leave the crowd in disappointment.
Joyner Lucas took the stage once more and noticed what was going to be the performance-saving event; one of the stage monitors had appeared to have started a fire, as if complying with the frustration of those in attendance. Once the speaker was replaced, the show was back on.
After an apology from Hopsin for leaving prematurely, he brought back the set with his hit “Nocturnal Rainbows” and gave an amazing performance. At first he was pacing the stage with occasional hand gestures, but after the unscheduled break to amend the technical difficulties, he was bounding up and down the stage and getting the crowd back into the wild state they were in beforehand.
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While he came off as a perfectionist with a temper, it was obvious that Hopsin needed good sound in order to put on such an energetic and enthusiastic performance that I consider one of the best stage performances I have ever seen come to Albuquerque.
Fin Maritnez is the culture editor at the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @FinMartinez.
