“A Milli” Vanilli

by MORGAN STEIKER

“Weezy! Weezy! Weezy!”

When 20,000 prepubescent fans are screaming your name at the top of their lungs, I guess it makes you feel like you can get away with anything. For Lil Wayne, who went from Cash Money baby brother to rap music’s biggest rock star, a lot more than sizzurp and weed has gotten to his head. Dude can literally throw a pair of shades on, take off his shirt, make a nursery rhyme using “turtle,” “purple” and “fertile,” and have a whole generation of listeners declare with a passion that he is “reinventing rap music“ and “changing the game forever.”

Don’t get it twisted, I definitely think he’s one of the dopest rappers out right now, but that doesn’t mean he can get away with a half-ass performance, especially when tickets went up as high as $150. He was lip-synching half the time! For every song he did, he would actually rap over his own vocals the same way I rap over my radio when I take a shower every morning. What ever happened to a hype man, my dude? The cherry on top was delivered when he sat in the middle of the stage pretending to play guitar while singing a ballad called “Prostitute.” He was barely touching his Fender but all the mini-groupies around me were ready to flash him as if John Mayer was on stage.

Nonetheless, when I was offered a ride the next day to cover the show in Toronto and interview T-Pain, who is also performing on the tour, the only reaction I could muster was a quick “pfff, hell yeah!” Along with More to Life TV founder and producer Ryan Solomon and his faithful, factoid-loving cameraman Wiki, we hit the road in the early afternoon in order to set up shop at Lot 332 for a 9:30 p.m. interview. After a traumatizing car ride during which my psyche was forever scarred by some dead bear porn (thanks, Wiki!), we dropped off our stuff at the hotel and headed for the club, ready to start rolling. The party was so chock full of oochie-mamas and rainbow-coloured wankstas that by 11, you couldn’t even bop your head on beat without head-butting the person next to you. By midnight, I was sitting in VIP with More to Life, who were immortalizing the moment by interviewing all the heavyweights in the house, and I quickly found myself sandwiched between Seven30 Entertainment’s Nick Jarjour and Jerry Wonder, legendary producer from the Fugees. Pretty heavy stuff for a kid that grew up on Wyclef and L. Boogie.

This weekend, you can get your prescription of beat breaks from Dr. Skratch Bastid at the third edition of Igloofest. He’ll be juggling records Friday, Jan. 23 at 8 p.m., right at Quai Jacques-Cartier in the Old Port, where the festival is hosted. Don’t forget your boots and mittens when you come dance the cold away.

MORGAN F, BABY…DABEATSEEKER@GMAIL.COM