Spring concert not 'fabolous'

This year, like the two years before, the Spring Weekend concert will be headlined by two rap acts.

As announced in Wednesday's Daily Campus, this spring's show will feature famous hip-hoppers Nas and Fabolous, with special guest The Black Violins. Nowhere in the lineup is any non-rap act that anyone's heard of, nor any non-rap act that anyone wants to pay $10 to see. This is an outrage! An all-rap Spring Weekend concert - again - is unacceptable.

There is simply no reason one genre of music should be able to dominate the concert, thrown for the entire university, for three consecutive years. After all, why should only rap fans get to enjoy the Spring Weekend concert? Doesn't everyone deserve the chance to have a good time there?

If I'm not mistaken, the intent of this annual concert is to give the entire university community something to do, besides drinking, for at least one night of Spring Weekend. Yet, by throwing a concert whose two main acts are both rappers, Student Union Board of Governers (SUBOG) fails to achieve this end. Rather than providing something fun everyone, SUBOG excludes students that don't want to listen to Fabolous poetically wax about the various types of women he's slept with.

This exclusion is completely unjustified, as SUBOG is supported by university fees everyone must pay. When SUBOG throws the spring concert, it uses its money, collected from these fees, to subsidize the price of tickets (that's why tickets are $10 for students and $30 for non-students, in case you were wondering). Using this money to fund an entirely rap show amounts to great injustice. There's no way the university community should be indirectly paying for an expensive show that fails to benefit much of it. If SUBOG is going to use money collected from university fees to fund this show, the biggest and most anticipated show of the year, then it should make some effort to make it something more people want to go to.

Yet they don't. Instead, they take roughly 20 of my hard earned dollars and use them to throw a party I would never want to go to. It really makes me feel good to know SUBOG is forcefully taking my money, which took me three hours to earn at my crappy grocery store job, and giving it to Fabolous so he can roll another blunt and then sing a song about rolling tons of blunts.

If SUBOG wanted to be fair, then it would schedule a mixed-genre show more of our community could enjoy. If it did this, most of UConn could walk away from the show satisfied, having heard something they actually wanted to hear. This is clearly the ideal situation.

Aside from satisfying a greater percentage of the community, a show featuring both rap and rock would also encourage greater unity amongst UConn undergraduates. Think about it. Rock fans aren't going to go see a rap concert. Conversely, rap fans won't be hearing any rock at this year's show. Each group remains separated and unexposed to the other group's preferred musical genre. However, if both types of music were played, everyone would have the opportunity to broaden their horizons and hear some new songs. People who don't usually associate could share a common experience. Truly, this would be best for the university community because such a concert would promote both diversity and appreciation of different musical styles.

So why not do it like this?

Well, I can't think of a reason not to. However, people I've argued with have claimed, in SUBOG's defense, that it's just too difficult to get rap and rock acts to share the stage (in terms of booking with separate agents and the willingness of the artists). This logic is unquestionably illogical. Countless other universities are able to do this with no problem. A friend of mine, for example, had the chance to see rapper Kanye West and rock bands Fuel and Trapt at West Virginia's annual Fallfest (imagine the craziness of Spring Weekend, just amplified, and in the fall). Linkin Park's Projekt Revolution Tour, which featured Snoop Dogg and KoRn, further proves rap and rock can share the stage without a problem.

There's really no excuse for featuring only rap music at this concert, unless there is favoritism on the part of SUBOG?).

At the very least, if booking a split-bill is too difficult, the Spring Weekend concert should annually alternate between rap and rock. Under this plan, everyone could be satisfied with the concert at least some of the time. Rap fans, before you write off this idea, imagine if the shoe were on the other foot. How would you like it if every concert was exclusively punk rock and ska? Would you want your fee money going to the likes of Monty's Fan Club, Billy Talent, Jimmy Eat World and Green Day next year? No?

The inherent injustice of isolating non-rap fans from the concert, while simultaneously forcing them to pay for it, is not the only problem with this year's show. Aside from the exclusivity of genre, another problem is the lyrical messages sent by the concert's performers. The most recent albums of both Fabolous and Nas feature songs about drinking, promiscuous groupie sex, pot, hard drugs and violence. Essentially, these rappers use their music to glorify all things party and "gangsta."

While I have no problem with partying or writing music about it, I have to question SUBOG's judgment in booking this sort of act for Spring Weekend. In recent years, the weekend has been rife with fools who party just a little too hard. Drunken violence and property damage have been far too abundant. Having rappers that promote drinking, drugs and violence in their songs sets the wrong tone for Spring Weekend. Although these sorts of things will invariably happen over the course of the weekend, regardless of the night's performers, UConn and SUBOG shouldn't be positively enforcing this sort of behavior through the musical acts they book for the concert.

By creating an entirely rap concert, SUBOG has failed the UConn community. Instead of providing a diverse, enjoyable experience, this concert will benefit only a niche of UConn students. Considering the source of the concert's funding, fees paid by students, this is unquestionably unjust. This year's show, aside from isolating and fleecing many students, will also further the craziness of Spring Weekend - an event that has mired the university, devalued UConn degrees and tarnished our reputation.

Thank you, SUBOG.

Next year, for the first time in four years, changes need to be made. Another all-rap concert in 2006 would be simply intolerable.

Sources: The Daily Campus http://www.bursar.uconn.edu/forms/tuitn_ftimeFY05.html http://www.nis.wvu.edu/2004_Releases/fallfest04.htm http://www.projektrevolution.com/bands.php