The temperature rose as 200+ Memphians gathered on the top floor of Jack Robinson Art Gallery, but each attendee beared the humidity for the unique opportunity to scream Kanye West lyrics in unison for three hours.
“Urban City Bachelor Presents: The Kanye West Tribute Show” featured a slew of local performers as well as artists and painters. The Sept.27 event was pieced together by local record label Unapologetic and the “Urban City Bachelor” himself, 30-year-old Aaron Harris.
“It took me a while find an actual venue that could bring my show to life,” Harris said. “When I came here it instantly hit me. This was the place I wanted it to be. The lighting basically creates an atmosphere that makes you feel like you are at an art show, but that you are also possibly in a movie at the same time.”
Attendees flocked through the first floor, viewing artist Jordan Marble’s visual display of album-cover-inspired paintings, and communed upstairs to watch ballerinas Angel Clark, Tamara Parrish, and Tabatha Perry recreate Kanye West’s “Runaway” music video move-for-move.
Performers Don Lifted, PreauXX, Melvin Thomas, and Cameron Bethany then covered handfuls of selected Kanye West songs through a P.A. system while the DJ, Kid Maestro, transitioned between their sets with sound bytes of various Kanye interviews. Performing very familiar refrains was a change of pace for the mostly underground rappers.
“It was like being a kid again doing karaoke in my room,” PreauXX said. “The crowd was performing the songs themselves.”
It is likely that PreauXX may eventually break out of the underground Memphis rap scene. The MC traveled to play at the SXSW festival, has received coverage from both the Commercial Appeal and Memphis Flyer, and is slated to play at the Afropunk festival on October 2. PreauXX shared how Kanye West inspired him to start his path in the music industry.
“Kanye is one of the reasons I began making music,” Preauxx said. “He’s never let me down. College Dropout made me start rapping.”
The New Orleans-born, Memphis artist who literally did drop out University of Memphis to pursue music full-time and who co-founded creative coalition TRDON believes that performing music makes allies out of strangers.
“It’s what I love to do. It’s union. It’s unity,” Preauxx said. “The crowd is involved. They’re performing. We’re performing. It’s just good to see everybody doing it together. That’s what I love about music.”
Tribute show attendee and Memphis native Rachel Benford shared which collection of Kanye’s music she feels most united to.
“I love all of Kanye West’s albums even 808s and Heartbreaks,” Benford said.
“People hate that album. I absolutely love that album. It has a deep emotional connection to me.”
Artist Jordan Marble’s emotional connection to West transcends platforms from music to the visual arts. The painter’s nine pieces on the first floor held attendees’ attention both before and after the musical performances upstairs. Some stared for long periods of time and even took “Snapchat videos” of his work. Marble explained how Kanye West plays a huge part in his artistic world.
“Ever since I’ve been listening to his music I’ve felt the energy that comes from him and it makes me feel like I can do what he’s doing,” Marble said. “I can’t write or rap but I’m into music. I have a good ear for music and I love art. I feel like there’s somebody out there that’s doing it. He gives me a platform to do it too.”
The Overton High School graduate explained how the “Urban City Bachelor” enlisted him for the Kanye West tribute event.
“Aaron Harris. I’ve done one of his shows before,” Marble said. “He was like you know I’m doing this Yeezy show do you want to be a part of it?
As soon as he told me I started going to work.”
Aaron Harris had a clear and definite answer to how Kanye has inspired artists of all kinds, and not just musicians.
“He’s just an artistic genius,” Harris said. “So many people, as you saw tonight, are inspired by Kanye West whether musically, artistically, or fashion-wise.
He just brings that out in people and I wanted to show Memphis that we could recreate that atmosphere.”
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Interestingly enough, Harris’ favorite artist happens not to be Mr.West.
“Honestly Kanye West isn’t even my favorite rapper,” Harris said. “But, my favorite rapper is Jay-Z so it’s not too far from the tree.”
As Memphians stopped to congratulate him on the success and turnout of the event, Harris shared that more branches from the tree of the Urban City Bachelor will soon grow as a result of the seed that the Kanye West Tribute Show has now planted.
“I normally do two shows a year but as of right now things are going very well so I’ll be doing shows much more frequently,” Harris said. “This is phenomenal. This was more than I could ever ask for. This is great.”
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