Chicago Hates You

   A few nights ago, I was invited to go to a hip hop concert.  It was my good friend's younger brothers birthday gift, so I got a free ticket.  I was excited about the show, but was pretty much indifferent to how the result would be as I know most of these events are rather anti-climatic.  However, I took it as an opportunity to do some field research for class. The headlining artists were Curren$y and Big K.R.I.T, two artists that I think are fine but by no means would I go out of my way to see.

  It was a relentlessly cold night in Chicago, and the show was set at Congress theatre, a once great but now deteriorating concert hall that looks like something out of the abandoned Detroit metropolis.  Once inside, I realized the crowd wasn't quite what I expected.  I expected to see alot of scenester white kids, which there were, but the majority of the crowd was actually hispanic and black.
  The hottest DJs in Chicago were up on stage, playing all the current Chicago staples for everyone to listen to, Chief Keef, King Louie, and so on.  In typical rap concert fashion, the doors opened at 7pm, and you had to face an endless army of upcoming artists before a hint of the headliner even emerged around 1am.  (We ended up leaving frustrated after 5 hrs of openers w/o having seen the main acts).
  The most interesting part of the night was the first act, however.  It was a female MC who had charisma and was by herself.  She was the only artist to perform alone on stage that night.  She came onto the stage and asked who likes Young Chop, the hottest producer in Chicago at the moment.  The crowd was still disinterested.  Chop's "I Don't Like" beat began to blare and she started to do her own verse on top of it.  She had the chops for it, but the crowd was clearly unimpressed.  They threw up middle fingers, yeled 'boo!', and other mean things.  They yelled "bring a skinny girl out!".  It was too much for her and she left after just three tracks.  I felt bad for her because it took guts to try and rap over the hottest beat, especially as an overweight, female, and asian MC.  She wasn't the only one to get hate that night, however.  Basically every act that night was booed and flicked off as people were restless to see the opener.  Even Young Chop's new group, 8tmg, received no love from the crowd.  Chicago truly hates everyone, even it's own stars.  After about 15 spinoff acts of Chief Keef, we had had enough.  But the last opener we saw got interesting.  After being booed and hated on, an MC by the name of Paperboy confronted the crowd.  "All you hatin' ass white boys get to the front so I can beat your ass, this is Chicago! Your own talent! The F*** is this!?!".  After their set, they accompanied security into the crowd to harass a particular white boy who had flicked off everyone, accusing him of being a racist amongst other things.

We were bored with the antics, so we left.  But it was quite the experience and I learned that Chicago does truly hate everyone, even it's own..