Kanye West and Drake’s live-streamed benefit gig has attracted a great deal of excited pre-publicity. Not merely because of the causes behind it – it aims to free Larry Hoover, a Chicago gang leader who has been in prison since a 1973 murder conviction, and raise money for nonprofit organisations dealing with former convicts and prisoners’ rights – but because it represents the squashing of the long-running and occasionally incomprehensible beef between two of pop’s biggest stars.
The prospect of reconciliation between Drake and West notwithstanding, it’s hard not to feel a certain trepidation during the lengthy run-up to the performance, beamed live around the world via the gaming platform Twitch. West is an erratic live performer. He can be fantastic, but things can go desperately awry, often in the form of extempore on-stage lectures. Tonight’s show feels particularly high-stakes: if it goes wrong, what price its objectives and good causes?
But after a lengthy opening performance by a gospel choir – they perform a version of Carl Orff’s O Fortuna with lyrics altered to reflect West’s evangelical faith and a cover of his Ultralight Beam as well as Adele’s seldom-played Easy on Me – it quickly becomes apparent any fears are unfounded. West pummels the audience with one hit after another: Jesus Walks, Gold Digger, Touch the Sky, Stronger, Flashing Lights, N****s in Paris and a ferocious Black Skinhead. The staging manages to be both extravagant and minimal – it’s just West, swathed in clouds of dry-ice, performing on top of a giant white structure that looks like an upturned smoke alarm – and his performance is surprisingly compelling.
Clad in an enormous pair of boots that one suspects are of his own design, he stalks the huge stage, bent almost double as he raps. Occasionally, he follows the camera operator around, performing directly into the lens, eyes blazing. It’s an hour-long reminder of how great West can be, of the high standard set by the music so often overshadowed by his erratic behaviour or idiotic transgressions. Even his appeal to ex-wife Kim Kardashian West to take him back is nestled, with relative subtlety, into a new verse on Runaway (“I need you to run right back to me / More specifically, Kimberly.”) His set ends with a version of Drake’s Forever, performed as a duet – “FREE THE MANDEM” reads Drake’s hoodie – the two staring each other down as they perform.
When he’s alone on stage, Drake addresses the audience. “I just want to say I appreciate Kanye for having me tonight,” he says, going on to laud his former nemesis for running through “one of the best catalogues in music, period”. Then: “I hope you don’t mind if I do my thing for a bit.”
It’s an apparently humble remark that, as it turns out, comes with a hint of “uh-oh” attached. After an opening cover of West’s 24, Drake’s set is almost entirely drawn from his recent album Certified Lover Boy and its preceding EP, Scary Hours 2. He performs Girls Want Girls, Way 2 Sexy, No Friends in the Industry, In the Bible. “I came to do some new shit for y’all tonight,” he exclaims. A risky strategy at the best of times, but riskier still when your new shit is as so-so and more-of-the-same as Drake’s. It’s music trapped in an lucrative holding pattern; he is content to switch on the Auto-Tune and burble away in an injured tone about slights, arguments and sundry other crimes against his person.
In fairness, the streaming stats are as nuts as ever – this album bested West’s Donda on Spotify – but tonight, with the contents of West’s patchy recent album tactfully ignored in favour of nailed-on smashes, it feels like a letdown. It also doesn’t help that a lot of the tracks he performs feature appearances from guests who aren’t present – their parts are on the recorded track – so what we get is a man gesticulating while his new album plays in the background.
West returns for a final performance of God’s Plan but the most telling moment comes earlier in Drake’s set, when the camera switches to West, in the crowd, beaming with delight. At the raised profile for Hoover’s cause? At the money raised for worthwhile charities? At the squashing of the longstanding beef? At the fact he has emerged from the evening triumphant? It’s hard to tell.
