KEITH APE @Fabrique

On this Wednesday 26 of April, Keith Ape had a concert at the Fabrique. This promised to be the concert of the week, therefore, Massi and I had to be there. We’re big Hip-Hop fans but I have to admit that before the show we barely knew 2 songs from Keith Ape (which in the end didn’t matter that much since he only performed 4), but we both really wanted to experience “IT G MA” (his most popular song) in concert at least once in our life, just to be able to tell our grandkids: “When I was teenager I went to see an artist from Seoul, South Korea, in Milan, Italy, who was known for doing “trap”, an Hip-Hop movement invented in Atlanta, United States. Those were the days”.

Anyway, when we got to the show at around 8:50pm, DJ Luke, the warm-up DJ had already started to perform. At that time, the crowd was quite small and dispersed all around the venue. This gave us the possibility to take a proper look at Keith Ape fans, making us wonder if we were not at one of those fashion weeks’ events that seems to happen every two weeks in Milan. Every single one of them was covered of the newest clothes of the most “hype” brands (I kid you not: Massi seemed to know everyone), some were wearing what seems to be bulletproof jackets while another guy was throwing fake money with a “Supreme Money Gun”. This scene along with the DJ Luke set, composed of the most recent songs of the most recent artists did gave out the most “2017 in Hip-Hop” vibe that you could find at a concert.

 However, after one hour and a half of waiting, we were happy to see another DJ and Wifisfuneral, the first part of the show, get on stage. Wifisfuneral set was short; only two songs. However, he did stay on stage to welcome Keith Ape whose entry got the crowd going crazy. Only half of us seemed to know the lyrics, but who cares? Everybody was just happy to “turn up”. The second song was his newest one, “Going Down To UnderWater”, that already counts 800 thousand views in only two weeks on YouTube. The particularity of this one is that the beat is a remake of the South Park’s music. That was enough to get the crowd to keep jumping. The next song, “Diamonds” was fun as well, original for its chorus describing his full wardrobe (“My shoes, my pants, I do my dance”). Finally, the first two notes of the IT G MA came out of the speaker and the venue just became one big mosh-pits. Keith asked his DJ to play the song one more time and the concert was over. Very short, exhausting but so satisfying.

Honourable mention: Playing twice XXXTentacion “Look At Me” when you are a Hip-Hop DJ is a VERY good idea.

-Paul Emile Duroux