Twenty-one-time Grammy Award winner Kanye West took to the LA Coliseum alongside special guest Drake to deliver an electrifying, historic performance on Dec. 9. However, its central message was shaky and half-hearted at best, creating controversy and confusion in true Kanye fashion.
Prior to their recent reconciliation, Drake and West had been at serious odds with each other since mid-2018, with Drake’s scathing Duppy Freestyle taking several shots at West. Since then, there has been no shortage of subliminal disses between the two hip-hop heavyweights.
More recently, when it was announced that West’s thrilling ninth studio album “DONDA” was to be released on Aug. 21, Drake set the release date of his own highly anticipated sixth studio album “Certified Lover Boy” to Sep. 3 in order to compete with West. “Certified Lover Boy” even included subtle disses towards West.
However, thanks to the efforts of hip-hop magnate J. Prince, a surprise reconciliation of the two artists occurred at Drake’s Toronto mansion on Nov. 16. Just a week after Drake and Kanye publicly patched things up, Drake announced his involvement in the Free Larry Hoover Benefit Concert via an Instagram post.
After no shortage of viral clips teasing various songs on the setlist, the concert – which seemed impossible just weeks prior – finally arrived, complete with a livestream of the event on Amazon Music and Prime Video.
The concert itself included a number of head-scratching decisions as well as some truly rewarding moments for fans of Drake and West alike. West dug deep into his catalog of hits, performing mid-2000s chart toppers like Gold Digger and Stronger, many of which West has not performed since his doomed 2016 Saint Pablo tour. Legendary producer and longtime West collaborator Mike Dean also played a crucial role in the concert, adding tasteful improvised guitar licks to complement West’s music and playing a role in the mixing of sounds heard by millions.
West’s cover of Drake 2010 hit “Find Your Love” was a definite standout, drawing the biggest reaction from the over 70,000 concertgoers. Also remarkable was West’s updated take on the climactic moment of “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”, the ever-emotional “Runaway,” which managed to draw tears from Tyler, the Creator, who was in attendance. West altered the song’s famous unintelligible outro into a desperate call for Kim Kardashian, whom West recently divorced from.
In contrast, Drake, who took the stage after West, had a far less impressive setlist. While he could have followed West’s route and drew from his rich discography, ripe with over a decade’s worth of crowd favorites, Drake chose to play deep cuts from “Certified Lover Boy” like “In the Bible” and “IMY2,” which understandably elicited a weaker reaction from the crowd than West’s medley. The concert ended on the highest of notes: West and Drake’s 2009 collaboration, “Forever,” complete with a brilliant Dean guitar solo.
Senior Rithvik Vanga watched the concert via Prime Video. He was pleasantly surprised with West’s selection of music. “Kanye really tried to give the fans something special. I almost couldn’t believe it when he started when he opened with Jesus Walks,” he said. “I was expecting him to continue on the Donda wave he’s been on recently.”
However, despite the fanfare and fan service, both West and Drake did little to actually benefit the concert’s namesake: Larry Hoover. While prison rights advocate Alice Marie Johnson gave a brief monologue about the conditions that Hoover is facing in solitary confinement prior to the concert, neither West or Drake explicitly said anything in support of freeing Larry Hoover, spare from toting personalized versions of the ludicrously priced concert merchandise being sold on Amazon.
The emphasis was solely on the music and keeping fans entertained. It would not be a stretch to claim that most concertgoers were unfamiliar with the heinous crimes that have landed Hoover in prison for the past 24 years, as part of the six consecutive life sentences he is serving.
Hoover was the former leader and founder of the Gangster Disciples, a notorious Chicago outfit. According to Ron Safer, a former U.S attorney who led the team that prosecuted Hoover, West has no reason to publicly back someone as malicious as Hoover. “There were, I believe, 954 murders in the city of Chicago and the majority of those tied to the Gangster Disciples. And Larry Hoover was in charge at that time,” Safer recalled. The nearly 1,000 murders tied to the Gangster Disciples is in addition to the nearly $100 million they did in illicit business.
It is puzzling why West chose to hold his show in LA as opposed to Chicago, where Hoover’s legacy has had a greater impact. To be fair, West’s support of Hoover is nothing new. West reportedly asked President Trump to pardon Hoover in 2018, a request which Trump denied. On the backend of the song “Jesus Lord” from West’s “DONDA”, Hoover’s son, Larry Hoover Jr., delivers an impassioned two-minute long speech, thanking West’s efforts to free his father and urging listeners to support Hoover Sr.’s clemency.
So what was the overall purpose of the show? Was it a cash-grab? A chance to show that West and Drake had made up? A weak attempt at supporting a Chicago gang leader? The unfocused nature of the concert suggests that perhaps West himself was not really sure of its true purpose either.
While hip-hop fans were surely glad to see a high-octane performance from two of the biggest names in the music industry, the concert likely will not have much of an effect on Larry Hoover’s prison sentence. The Free Larry Hoover Benefit Concert feels like an ambitious plan that lost steam midway through its production. It may go down in hip-hop history simply because of the unlikely circumstances around its creation, but its ill-advised message was simply lost in translation.
