According to our tireless reviewer Esther Park, this year's Best of the Best concert was even more intense than the last. With so many big-name artists scheduled to perform every year, there are always unexpected changes, pleasant surprises, and, it seems, a crazy sprint through the final leg of the show.
If you missed it, though, like with any other big concert these days, you can catch snippets of what you missed on YouTube. Among the random details of the official Crossfade review was that superstar - in - the - making Nicki Minaj basically lip-synced over a mixtape of her hits. So we went to video to check it out.
Here's a clip with high-quality video from YouTube user NereePhotos. It starts with concert host Jabba messing with the crowd by saying Nicki missed her plane, with gasps and minor panic ensuing.
It's hard to tell exactly what was going on with this clip since the editor (wisely) spliced in recorded versions of the song with the fuzzy live recording. But it looks like she wasn't exactly lip-syncing per se so much as dancing around and hyping up the crowd while her hits played in the background.
Um, we love Nicki so we'll give her a pass since she's basically on her way to pop star status. We also give some points for the "Hold Yuh" remix that starts around 2:45.The somewhat disappointing part is that this clip is under five minutes long and seems to capture pretty much her whole performance.
Moving on, the other much-anticipated performance of the evening was that of Gucci Mane, who was celebrating his first big show since his release from prison. Gucci showed up with his Brick Squad Crew, including protege Waka Flocka Flame, and was joined onstage by a million people throughout his abbreviated set. For example, here's a clip of him performing "O Let's Do It" with Diddy, Rick Ross, Waka, and a million little kids (?), courtesy of YouTube user coast2coastmixtapes.
Finally, some reggae. Capleton closed out the evening, getting a late start and even continuing to perform acoustically until the venue actually cut off his sound. Here's a pretty high-quality video of some of his set, from YouTube user PartySearch247. He starts getting crazy hyping the crowd at about 1:50. Check out the crowd shots for the amazing variety of flags represented.
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