With the sun setting on one of the most energetic and exciting years here at Penn State, it is no surprise that its students want to close the year with a bang, and bang they most certainly got this past Tuesday night as Kendrick Lamar graced the Bryce Jordan Center with his upbeat songs, inspiring rap lyrics, and positive presence.
Although short (roughly an hour or so), the concert proved to be a huge success for all those in the audience. His tour, good kid m.A.A.d. city World Tour, was the perfect way to bring all of the excitement at the BJC to a close. Lamar began the show with “Art of Peer Pressure” and the crowed automatically went nuts. Throughout the show he blasted through many anthems off his current album, as well as some throwbacks that he explained were from mixtapes and EPs in years past.
The energy from the crowd was wild with almost everyone, on the floor and in the seats, rapping along to their favorite Kendrick songs. However, the true shining moments were when Lamar dropped his hits, “F’ing Problem”, “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe”, and “Swimming Pools (Drank)”.
Clad in a Penn State Jersey of his own, Lamar made it a point to call out Lady Lions star Alex Bentley on her achievement of being drafted to the WNBA. The crowd got even more excited to see that a mainstream superstar was aligning with one of our own.
“No matter how big or how small we both get, I’ll always be back for y’all”, Kendrick said as he headed off stage after an encore of “Cartoon and Cereal”, and with a performance like that, we can only hope he comes back to us soon.