Friday, December 10, 2021
YE, DRAKE COME TOGETHER FOR LANDMARK CONCERT
Kanye West and Drake came together in front of 70k fans at the L.A. Coliseum on Thursday for their Free Larry Hoover Benefit Concert. This century's biggest hip-hop stars performed hits from their catalogs while raising awareness of Hoover's incarceration and prison reform. Amazon filmed the production, now streaming on Prime Video.
Like most Ye events, the concert was grand, unpredictable and a reminder of the remarkable success enjoyed by the pop-culture iconoclast throughout his career. The evening provided fans with a resolution that has felt insurmountable over the last five years: the settling of Ye and Drake's epic beef. If they could finally do this, it was intimated, perhaps sentencing reform actually stands a chance.
Their grand entrance lasting nearly 20 minutes, they appeared beneath the Coliseum's Olympic torch as Ye's Sunday Service choir opened with Adele's "Easy on Me" and other gospel/West interpolations.
Thereafter the pair walked through the stadium to the 50-yard line, where a massive mound had been erected, serving as the headliners' cloud stage. Smoke and light were the only other props required to create a lunar setting for hip-hop's favorite astronauts.
Escorted to the stage by his former adversary, Ye powered through nearly 45 minutes of hits, spanning his G.O.O.D./Def Jam catalog, from College Dropout, Late Registration and Graduation to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Yeezus, The Life of Pablo and the Grammy-nominated Donda. It was clear that despite the concert's positioning as a benefit, Ye never lost sight of the fact that 70,000 had people showed up for the music.
Drake's return to the stage proved a highlight, with West doing Drizzy's "Find Your Love." The 6-God himself opted to perform heaters from Certified Lover Boy, including "Knife Talk," "Way 2 Sexy" and "Girls Want Girls." West re-emerged for a few more songs before wrapping up the concert by Drake's side atop the orb. The duo ended the show with their multiplatinum 2009 collaboration, "Forever." As for Hoover, roughly 30 minutes before the concert started, a mini-documentary explored the sentences meted out to him and his 20+ years of solitary confinement. Thousands of fans wore Carolina-blue merchandise emblazoned with "Free Hoover" that they'd purchased at the venue. Designed by Ye and Balenciaga, the line is available through Amazon here. Beneficiaries of the event include Uptown People's Law Center, Hustle 2.0 and Ex-Cons for Community and Social Change.This really is the good life, tho. #KanyeDrakeLive pic.twitter.com/M6tOPIXSTZ
— Prime Video (@PrimeVideo) December 10, 2021
“O Fortuna”
“Ready or Not” (Fugees)
“Easy on Me” (Adele)
“Back to Life” (Soul 2 Soul)
“Ultralight Beam” West “Jesus Walks”
“All Falls Down”
“Gold Digger”
“Touch the Sky”
“Stronger”
“All of the Lights”
“Black Skinhead”
“All Day”
“Mercy”
“Good Life”
“Flashing Lights”
“Say You Will”
“I Wonder”
“Find Your Love” (Drake)
“Runaway” West w/Drake
“Can’t Tell Me Nothing” Drake
“24” (Kanye West)
“Wants and Needs”
“No Friends in the Industry”
“What’s Next”
“Life Is Good”
“IMY2”
“Laugh Now Cry Later”
“Girls Want Girls”
“In the Bible”
“Way 2 Sexy”
“Knife Talk”
“God’s Plan” West “Hurricane”
“Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1” [f/Sunday Service Choir]
“N----s in Paris”
“Bound 2”
“Come to Life” West and Drake
“Forever”