Plies Debuts in New York City – NY Times Concert Review
Plies didn't bring his Hummer.
It’s always a big deal when a southern hip-hop artist (or any hip-hop artist not from NYC) has their first concert/show in the Mecca of Hip-Hop. The Knitting Factory, where Plies performed, is definitely a more intimate venue. I saw Homeboy Sandman and J-Live perform there this summer. Check out what the New York Times said about Plies’ NYC performance:
The only gazes more intent than those of the teenage girls staring up at the rapper Plies at the Knitting Factory on Monday night were those of a handful of linebacker-size bodyguards, staring right back down into the crowd. A Plies show can get rowdy: in 2006 a concert in Gainesville, Fla., ended in gunfire, the arrests of the rapper and three of his associates (he pleaded no contest to a weapons charge), and a pending civil suit.
But such is the tension at the core of this rapper from Fort Myers, Fla., who has rapidly built an impressive career working both sides of the Tupac scale, thug and lover. What makes Plies so enthralling is his intuitive understanding that these two roles aren’t all that different; both demand loyalty, intensity and a tolerance for suffering.
During this show, his first in New York — in advance of “Da REAList” (Slip-N-Slide/Atlantic), his third album and second this year — he switched back and forth between the two characters. For the men there was “Who Hotter Than This” and “I’m Da Man,” on which Plies assured, through a mouth full of gold teeth, “Went to sleep real/ Woke up realer.” For the women there were a few more options — “Shawty, Bust It Baby (Part 2),” “Please Excuse My Hands” — all full of brutally raunchy lyrics that somehow still smacked of genuine affection.
Early on Plies was stiff; both his hype man and his backing vocal track were louder, and more constant, than he was. He didn’t loosen up until midshow, when he stripped off his shirt and told his D.J., “Play a couple records I been on!,” then exuberantly rapped his guest verses from DJ Khaled’s “I’m So Hood” and Shawty Lo’s “Dey Know.”
But still, is Plies a sex symbol or one of the guys? Toward the end of the night it felt as if he wanted to be neither. During “#1 Fan” the security guards pulled three young women on stage to dance, though even as Plies rapped — “Good girls I love ’em/ I like to turn ’em bad” — it all felt a bit innocuous. He even kissed each of them gently on the cheek, like a protective older brother.
But Plies wanted a real connection, so he asked the crowd how many people had a friend or loved one in jail; several dozen fans raised their hands. “Push them back down,” Plies told his guards, nodding to the young women. “Get me three of these people up here right now.
“I wanna give y’all an opportunity to tell me where you from,” Plies continued once they were lined up next to him. “Rep what you wanna rep. Shout out your people who locked up.” One by one, drunk and sober, from Staten Island and from Florida, the young men did just that.
Once they were through, Plies delivered what can only be termed a homily on his obligations to the streets, then turned to the men and told them that he would give $1,000 to each of their incarcerated friends.
“I feel like it’s a responsibility of mine,” Plies said. A few minutes later he hustled off stage, a circle of large bodies around him, lest the tax of loyalty become any heavier.
NYTimes
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Pliiiiiies