Photo Courtesy of Short-TJoey Bada$$
Brooklyn’s Joey Bada$$ entered the stage with an intro that comprised of Jay Z’s “Empire State Of Mind” (“Yeah, I’m out that Brooklyn,..,”) Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York”, and Queen Latifah’s part on the movie Juice, which can be heard on the intro of his latest mixtape, Summer Knights. Just as loud and rough as he sounds on record, the 18 year old XXL Freshmen sounds the same as he delivered mixtape favorites, “Waves” and “Sweet Dreams.” After he delivered his verse on A$AP Rocky’s “1 Train,” Joey shared the stage with his clique. Pro Era’s Kirk Knight, Dessy Hinds, and Chuck Strangers joined the group’s breakout star and did not overstay their welcome as they ran through “Amethyst Rockstar,” “Sit N Prey, “and “Satellite”. My favorite parts of his set included the performances of “Hard Knocks” and “95 til’ Infinity”. The only weird thing about the opening set was a random Smoke DZA feature for “Death of YOLO”. He did his verse and left, I was disappointed that he did not stay to perform another song or verse. Anyway, the set ended with a dedication to fallen Pro Era member, Capital Steez, as the audience was instructed to put two fingers in the air as New York’s Bad A$$ found enough energy to close his set with the enthusiastic “Survival Tactics” as his DJ, Massachusetts producer, Statik Selektah mixed in the instrumental for “Deep Cover”.
Grade: A