Heading into the Ludacris concert Thursday that has been marred by controversy almost since its inception, I knew most of what I was in store for but there was still a bit of an unknown. When I arrived at about 7:15 p.m. there was a large crowd of people wrapped around Burleson and Ball halls all the way to Warf-Pickel Hall. The concert sold out Thursday after ticket sales had trickled down after the first day of sales.
Finally, after waiting outside in the uncharacteristically cold October weather the gates opened and people began rushing in. The ticket-takers and bag collectors quickly became rattled by the overwhelming amount of people coming at them at once. After minutes of fumbling around and through everybody’s belongings and tickets they got the hang of what they were doing.
While some people where pouring in and running to their seats other non-East Tennessee State University students where still trying to find there way in without being accompanied by an ETSU student. “There were people standing to the side of the line so ETSU students would let them in,” said, Audrey Noll, a freshman early childhood development major at ETSU. “One of the security guys was like ‘you are lucky they came by’ when we let some of them in with us.”
After waiting for well over an hour for things to get started and the countless ramblings of the unnamed man who shot T-shirts into the crowd with the Homecoming schedule on the back of them, two large SUVs rolled into the Mini-Dome via a garage door on the Mini-Dome’s east side carrying Ludacris and the opening act Disturbing Tha Peace.
After two of the five songs that Disturbing Tha Peace rapped it dawned on me I could indeed be a rapper. I further analyzed the situation to see what essentials I would need to be a top name rapper.
Here is what I learned from Disturbing Tha Peace’s set. To become a rapper I would only need to make one phrase or line for my rap songs such as “Gucci duffle bag” or “Who the f— you talking to?” seemingly the only phrases “hollaed” by Disturbing Tha Peace throughout entire songs. After I had that one line I would just need to simply insert any of the following words around my phrase: hustlers, playa, b—-, gun, yeah what, pimp or any derivative there of, my rap group’s name, ho, oh and uh.
Yeah, I know what you are saying, most of those things are not even words. They are more of the sound persuasion. Well do not look at me – I am not the one that was doing this throughout Disturbing Tha Peace’s five-song set.
After taking notes and really studying what will be the outline for my forthcoming rap career, I am now on the hunt for a DJ. If you know one send him my way … we are going to make lots of cash, money and records.
Anyway this atrocious excuse for a musical group’s set finally came to an end, and a lot of the crowd was waiting impatiently on their feet for the controversial star that SGA President JR Husmillo fought so hard to get.
Finally Ludacris stormed onto the stage accompanied by DJ JC and his backup rapper Lil’ Fate into one of his songs. I say one of his songs because for the first four songs I could not hear a word they said because of the horrible acoustics the Mini-Dome provides that were compounded by the thunderous bass in each song.
“What the f— is going on?” Ludacris said following his first song. “I heard that it took you all a lot to get my ass here, so I better give you all your money’s worth. So we are just going to keep playing this shit all night.”
After a bit I recognized a few of Ludacris’ songs, somehow through the horrible sound, such as “Pimpin’ All Over the World,” “Move B—-” and “Act A Fool,” but something seemed odd to me about the amount of time he played each song. Compared to the actual record versions of his songs the live versions were incredibly short. “I thought it was stupid that he only played half his songs instead of the full version,” Noll said. Ludacris playing half his songs came as quite a surprise to me considering his decree at the beginning of the concert to “give you all your money’s worth.”
In between Ludacris’s shortened songs he brought his unusually misogynistic banter to the Mini-Dome. Among my favorites during his show were, “All the ladies in the house scream if your p—-‘s clean” and who could forget the highly intellectual conversation between Ludacris, DJ JC and Lil’ Fate, “How many of you ladies like being made love to?” Ludacris said. “How many of you ladies love to just get f—ed at the end of the night?” DJ JC said. “How many of you ladies love to have love made to you and get f—ed at the same time?” Lil’ Fate said.
“If your p—- is clean, I want to hear you scream” was a horrible request to make, but worse than that was the fact that most of the girls at the show screamed – a testament to the quality of most people who attended,” said Ryan Curtis, a junior at ETSU.
“I thought it (the Ludacris concert) was OK for not having to pay since we paid already, but I thought it was stupid that he singled out girls like he did.”
When Ludacris was not making misogynistic banter he was racing through 16 tracks of his material in about 45 minutes.
The majority of the crowd seemed to enjoy the 45-minute concert Ludacris gave them.
However from a review standpoint the sound was horrible, he cut down his songs to half their original length and the lewd banter hurt his show. * from a review standpoint * * * *for crowd reaction.
Love me detest me or indifferent, I want to know. Send any e-mails to XnotAcitizenX@gmail.com.

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