DJ Khaled and French Montana
Cameo Miami
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Better Than: We want to say anything, because "We da best!" and all. But we would have much preferred to see Khaled do work.
Yeah, Memorial Day weekend is upon us. And last night, we were all pumped up and ready to pop bottles at Cameo with French Montana and Miami's favorite braggart, DJ Khaled.
But it turns out that Khaled is the reigning peek-a-boo champ. And while Montana threw us a couple of tracks, we hardly knew Khaled was there.
We rolled up to the club a bit late (approximately 1 a.m.), but making our way to the bar, we realized we were still early enough to catch some of the opening DJ set. Of course, every 30 seconds or so, someone got on the mic to explain that French Montana was "in the fucking building" and that DJ Khaled was definitely on his way.
The next hour was a whirlwind roller coaster ride through 99 Jamz' primetime playlist. We heard everything from Rick Ross to Tupac to the Black Eyed Peas in rapid-fire drops of maybe a verse each. Sometimes we barely caught glipmses of songs between switch-ups. But after a while, even the frenetic nature of the set wasn't enough to keep us from wondering when the damn show was going to start.
Finally, at about 2:30 a.m., French Montana made his way to the mic and called out to the crowd: "Miami, what the fuck is happening? All the bad bitches say ... Yeah!"
He repped all his people from Bad Boy, Maybach Music, and Coke Boys, then went into his verse from Ross's "Straight Off the Boat." He announced that DJ Khaled had just pulled up before moving on to his radio hit "Shot Caller."
"Let's not just play some of my shit," the rapper said as he finished the miniset. "Let's play some of my family shit." Then the DJ dropped some Rick Ross and that was pretty much the last we heard from Mr. Montana. At least, that's the last we saw from where we were standing. There looked to be about 60 on that stage, yet even stranger was that none of them looked like DJ Khaled.
According to everyone in range of a microphone, DJ Khaled was definitely in the building. But during the course of the three and a half hours, we saw a whole lot of go-go-dancing and stripper-style pole-gliding, even a couple handfuls of money rain down on the crowd. But we never spotted Khaled step behind the decks or the mike.
Still, Khaled's hits rained down throughout the night. We guess when it comes to peek-a-boo, DJ Khaled is just simply da best.
Critic's Notebook
Personal Bias: I'm used to watching DJs put a lot of effort into mixing and track selection. And seriously, I heard Big Sean's "A$$" at least three times last night. That just seems sloppy.
The Crowd: Surprisingly less energetic than expected. Fancy motherfuckers jazzed up with their best watches blinging all over the place. Also, apparently London was in the house or something.
Major Themes: The MC kept bringing up certain things, having people with more than $500 in their pockets put their hands in the air, and all the real best friends put their arms around each other. Apparently, the hip-hop community is all about Benjamins and besties.
On the Real: Y'all know not that many of you had more than $500 in your pocket. Someone with their hand up was lying.
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