06 May Fetty Wap Lights It Up
Last night, Flo Rida got his crowd “Low” and Ziggy had his jammin’, but only one artist got the crowd lit.
With white streamers shooting into the air, Fetty Wap took the stage in a white tee, jeans, and a chain.
This was easily one of the night’s biggest performances. The first headliner on the southern-most stage stage, thousands lined the JetBlue area, going far past the festival’s new Chill Zone.
A friend of mine stood next to me in disbelief, turned my way and said, “I’ve never seen so many young people in one place.” JetBlue was definitely the unofficial hip-hop stage last night and the crowd was loving it.
And it wasn’t just the audience that was filled to the brim. Joined by a posse of about ten, including DJ S Dot 1738, the rapper had a party of his own going on stage while performing songs like “RGF Island” and “D.A.M (Dats All Me).”
“It’s my first time out here,” Fetty Wap told the crowd. “And y’all turned out.”
Before going into his next song, the artist asked the crowd, “I love y’all. Can I tell you story?”
“When we first started doing this song, people would ask me ‘do you have this soda or sewed up?'” he said. Fetty Wap was, of course, referring to the chorus of his hit song “679.” It’s a clarification he’s made before — and for those of you who aren’t sure, the correct answer is “sewed up.”
After the release of his self-titled debut album in 2015, Fetty Wap received multiple Grammy nominations and peaked at number two on the Billboard Digital Albums chart.
I think what surprised me the most about Fetty Wap’s performance is that I can’t just call him a rapper anymore. When you hear a song on the radio, you always wonder how it’s going to translate live. Well, this guy delivers. Yes, he had a DJ and air horn sound effects and a back track. But he also had a powerfully underrated tool — his singing voice.
Throughout the night, the artist would launch into his notorious “1738, yeahhhh,” causing the crowd to lose it. But he’d also sing a lot of the hooks and choruses to his songs, immediately going back into rapping like it was just another Friday at the office.
We heard a lot of vocal chops on his performance of “Trap Queen,” the audience dancing right along through the cool breeze of night three. According to Billboard, that was actually the first song in his repertoire where Fetty gave singing a shot.
“I just wanted to do something different,” the artist told the magazine. “Everybody was rapping. Everybody wants to be a rapper so I did something different. I started singing.”
As fog machines shot steam into the air, the rapper asked the crowd, “Why y’all so lit though?” They responded with cheers and waved their hands from side to side for a few last songs.
He closed with hits including “My Way” and “Couple Bandz.”