Featuring an Air Jordan Cement 4 Shoey.
The longer I’ve been away from home, the more I’ve realised that no matter how far you are, you gotta wish well on others from your state and applaud when you see them winning. With that being said, we gotta give Queens-bred rapper Bas a smooth 18th hole golf clap for his latest shoo-in victory.
He showed out this past weekend at Manning Bar, and even ended the show by ripping Patron shots from a pair of Jordan 4’s like a goddam legend.
Early Dreamville projects were always blaring through whatever obnoxious speaker I had in my undergraduate dorm years ago, so there was no reason for me to question the quality of Bas’ music but rather how would it sound and resonate with an Aussie crowd during a live performance?
He shot down that preconception quicker than those shoeys, by putting on a concise show. It was evident that Bas was having fun out there, and the crowd was feeding off that genuine energy.
His later rendition of 'My Nigga Just Made Bail' brought a nostalgic smile to my face. The beat feels like it should be in a Dos Equis commercial plus you can’t go wrong with a J.Cole feature. The track just echos good vibes, like “No matter what happens things could be worse so be happy for that.” It’s a celebration my friends.
Afterwards, Bas got the crowd energised by performing more up-tempo tracks like ‘Boca Raton’ and ‘Jollof Rice’. He flowed over the beats with confidence and the crowd chimed in cadence like a choir. That beaming energy travelled from the front of the stage to the periphery, and it was great to see.
He also performed ‘Lit’, which contains samples from Miguel’s ‘Do You Like Drugs?’ He had these youngins reciting verses with enough confidence that you’d think they could drop out of Uni and rap full-time. Bas probably won’t disturb The University of Sydney’s current enrolments, but he did allow one kid to come on stage to rap Cole’s verse on a record with him which was great.
I think newer fans would also be happy with Bas’ Sydney performance. He played his music from Dreamville’s most recent compilation album, he performed ‘Costa Rica’, and even had everybody in front jumping harder than Vince Carter’s knee cartilage.
Oh, and can we talk about Lute? He opened up the show and held it down with music from his own discography. He ended his set with his verse from ‘Under The Sun’, which was the intro to the Dreamville album. He was a great precursor and got the crowd juiced up, setting the stage for Bas for an easy play.
Dreamville’s roster seems to have so much depth that literally everyone on the label is ready to step up and take a shot. Luckily for Sydney, the stage is set for another Dreamville performance by EarthGang, the label’s highly creative duo consisting of Olu (aka Johnny Venus) and WowGr8 (aka Doctur Dot). They recently dropped their album and have several shows lined up for their Australian leg of their tour so make sure to get tickets before they sell out.
Remember folks, teamwork makes the dream work, and shoeys for the win always.