Subscribe
HipHopWired Featured Video
CLOSE

On Tuesday (August 19), Forest Hills, Queens was the place to be if you were in New York City. The reason being YMCMB’s grand summer spectacle, the “Drake vs. Lil Wayne” tour.

Held in Forest Hills Stadium–an amphitheater in a residential area–a diverse crowd of fans, many of whom came with the proper accouterments to take in the concert the right way, anxiously awaited the duo to kick things off.

But here’s an interesting piece. It’s one thing to read that the duo and video game publisher Capcom (creators of the Street Fighter series) collaborated on the tour’s concept, which includes an interactive app to enhance the live experience. It’s another to see how it affects the show in person.

The app played a major part in how the night flowed. Upon command, the crowd mashed the screens of their smart phones in arcade-style fashion to select who would perform first. Weezy arose victorious, and fans were quickly thrust into a brief set of hit records. Following was Drake, who rocked the house with a few hits of his own. With the tone set, the two rappers went tit-for-tat by performing bundles of tracks from their respective discographies at a time, but not without sprinkling in some jokes.

Aside from the obvious hit records, the interaction between Drake and Wayne is the best part of the tour. While choreographed (to an extent), their round of the dozens seems natural–brotherly, even.

And who said there was dissension in the ranks of YMCMB?

While Wayne’s classic hits, including “A Milli,” “Money On My Mind,” “Mrs. Officer,” were a reminder of his reign of dominance in the mid to late aughts, Drake’s counter-attacks–a barrage of chart toppers like “Trophies,” “We Made It,” “Worst Behaviour,” and “Started From The Bottom”–were a sign of YMCMB’s bright future.

In the end, Drake would take home the gold that night, making the score 5-5 among the superstar tandem. The OVO frontman and New Orleans wordsmith would go on to close the show with a list of collaborative cuts, including “Believe Me” and a personal favorite, “HYFR.”

Photo: YouTube