I genuinely believe Young Thug is one of the most fascinating artists of our generation. His style is wholly unique, both musically and sartorially. Unfortunately his live shows are absurdly average and it doesn't seem like he has any interest in doing anything to make them special anytime soon. I wrote more about it for the Dallas Observer, which can be read here.
Wiz Khalifa and Co. at Bric's Block Party
Bric's Block Party brought in two of hip-hop's biggest acts to Dallas in Wiz Khalifa and D.R.A.M. but the real treat of the night was the surprise guests. Erykah Badu, Curren$y, Chevy Woods, Lil Flip all made appearances at The Bomb Factory. Surprises like that helped Bric's Block Party go beyond the standard rap show, which I wrote about for the Dallas Observer.
An Oldie But Goodie
This Matt and Kim show at The Bomb Factory in Dallas helped me realize that I've become a jaded music photographer. In general, there's really nothing wrong with Matt and Kim; they make high-energy "party" songs that are easy to listen to and always deliver a stellar live performance but the only problem I have with it all is that their shows are so scripted. It's been the exact same schtick since I saw them in 2012 (I saw them in 2008 but it was different then). Kim jumps on her drum set and dances, Matt stands up and pumps up the crowd, Kim dances atop the crowd, they pop off confetti cannons and there's always balloons. It's cool but it's always the same. This is only something someone has a problem with when they're working every time it happens, so, yes, I've become a little jaded. It's saddening to me but so far Matt and Kim are the only act that I've felt this way about. I've seen Chance The Rapper at least 8 times but I've never been disappointed. Matt and Kim just need to shake it up a little.
G-Eazy's When It's Dark Out Tour Hits Dallas, TX
G-Eazy's When It's Dark Out tour brought out thousands of the Bay Area's most dedicated fans to The Bomb Factory in Deep Ellum for a sold-out concert that put the rapper's superstar potential on full display.
Before Young Gerald took the stage Harlem rapper A$AP Ferg worked the 4,000-plus person crowd into a frenzy with hits like "Shabba," "Dump Dump" and his latest single "New Level." Despite the raging and the party antics, Ferg made sure to take time to celebrate the life of his friend A$AP Yams with a touching tribute.
As expected, G-Eazy took the stage and the venue went nuts. It's a little hard to comprehend the massive fan base he has considering he's technically an underground rapper who gets no radio play and little media coverage from major music publications. Nonetheless, he's been able to develop a dedicated fan base on the strength of his live show and his heartthrob aesthetic, which is something I wrote about for the Dallas Observer and you can read here.
This wasn't my first time seeing G-Eazy. In fact, this was probably my fourth or fifth time seeing him perform and I'm just taking a guess here but I wouldn't be surprised to see him performing in an arena next time. His superstar trajectory shows no signs of slowing.
Capturing A Knockout
One of my first assignments I ever had as a photographer was a photo essay on boxing. My photojournalism professor asked us to do a photo essay on someone we didn't know and it just happened to be at the same time the Texas Golden Gloves finals were taking place in Fort Worth. I'm still not sure how I had the guts to do this but I pulled into the parking lot as the athletes were registering for the event and I just walked up to the biggest boxer I saw. His name was Ladell Williams from Oak Cliff. Somehow Ladell and his coach trusted me and let me follow them around that weekend and I came away with some decent shots--nothing extraordinary. Photography was completely new to me at the time.
I really loved the experience. Boxing is different from sports like football and basketball. It's way more personal. In football there's 53-75 players on a team and it's just next to impossible to really focus in on one player or even care about one player. With boxing I was able to focus on Ladell and spend time with him as he prepared. Sadly, most of those images were lost when a hard drive crashed but I have a couple that I put on flickr.
Since that time I've been looking for more opportunities to shoot some boxing but I just haven't had any luck until recently. One of Dallas' newest venues, The Bomb Factory, hosted a Premier Boxing Champions event that was nationally broadcasted on NBC of which I was able to get access. It wasn't the access I was hoping for but as a photographer usually has to do, I worked with what I had. It would’ve been great to be able to shoot ringside with my 16-35mm capturing wide angle shots of jarring punches but instead I was relegated to the balcony of the venue. To get as close to the action as I could I had to work with my 70-200mm.
One of my favorite current photographers is Al Bello. He’s a sports photographer for Getty Images and his boxing photography is unrivaled. He consistently pumps out fantastic work from the major bouts featuring the likes of Mayweather, Pacquiao and Canelo. Well, after this event I have a whole new found respect for his amazing work. It was much more difficult than I thought to keep up with the fights and try to capture a flurry of punches, let alone a knockout punch. In one of the early fights I thought I was about to capture one—I saw it coming. One of the boxers attempted a wild right hook but he missed and while he was attempting to regather himself he was wide open and his opponent rocked him with a right hook of his own and knocked him out cold. I saw it coming but I couldn’t react fast enough and missed the knockout punch by at least two frames. I was pretty bummed out.
Later I felt like I was getting better but it still took a few rounds of each fight for me to start to see patterns in the boxers’ styles and prepare for flurries, but it was still quite a task. It was a great challenge, though, and I definitely look forward to being able to shoot more fights because when you do a great shot from a boxing match it feels pretty damn rewarding.