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  • » Name: Amanda Bassa
  • » Location: VA
  • » Member Since: 09/21/07
  • » Bio: student, future change maker, and everything you wouldn't expect me to be.
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The Undisputed Truth

Nas at Rock the Bells


July 28, 2008 | Tags: nas, Rock the Bells

Words just can’t express the joy I felt while watching Nas perform at the Maryland (promoted as DC) Rock the Bells this past weekend. Seriously. The last time I saw him live was shortly after Stillmatic was released, and needless to say that was a nice amount of years ago now. I don’t remember being absolutely amazed with anything from that set. Honestly, the only thing I remember from that show is his performance of “One Mic”. His emotion behind that really came through and stuck with me through the years.

But since none of the rest really stuck with me (and I was 100% sober at that show, too, so you can’t blame it on booze-related blackouts or anything), I’ve had low expectations for Nas performances ever since.

Not anymore!

I was actually going to skip watching Nas’ set at Rock the Bells. Sounds nutty, but I was more focused on seeing artists that I had never seen live before and doing some valuable networking and just chopping it up with random people I encountered. Thank goodness somebody knocked some sense into me and dragged me back into the crowd to see it. I felt like every new song that would come on had me going “oh shit! He’s taking it back something serious! Oh shit!”. He killed it with the Illmatic material and even threw in a nice amount from one of my favorite Nas albums, I Am. The energy that spread through the crowd was enough to make me completely forget the fact that I hadn’t eaten anything yet all day, my feet were beginning to betray me, and that somehow I had to deal with sitting through work just mere hours after this was all said and done.

And speaking of the crowd…it was insane. I really wasn’t sure how the turnout for the DC stop of the tour would end up, since it seemed like everybody I asked either had prior arrangements, didn’t have the loot to drop on the tickets, or straight up had no idea what I was talking about. But this crowd was live. And that Nas set had everybody going crazy.

Mind you, there were also people behind me – I was standing in one of the middle sections when I took this.

Amazing turnout. And what you also can’t see, thanks to the roof and of course the dark of the night (that was surprisingly friendly as far as summertime weather in the DC area is concerned) was the crowd on the lawn. I tried walking through them earlier in the day…all it really got me was a close call with stepping in someone’s puke, but nonetheless it was pretty packed up there, and the crowd only grew as the day went by. The DC area was showing love to Rock the Bells, and it was so nice to see. Moral of the story? If you’re going to one of the future Rock the Bells dates, don’t fucking miss Nas’ set! I'd hit you with more pics, but I was too enthralled with everything to mess with my camera settings so that I could get a decent shot while he was performing.

I’m sure there will be more to come from me as far as Rock the Bells is concerned. So much to say, so little time.

And also peace to those who took time to find me and say what up, how much they hated whatever particular blog/article of mine, or just chat about random shit. Especially Mark, the N.O.M.A.D.S., random people who recognized me from other venues somehow, and everybody who showed the DX booth some love. Where else you can find a t-shirt for five bucks and free Rock the Bells themed mixtapes? Can’t beat that.


The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the writer and not necessarily those of HipHopDX.com or Cheri Media Group.

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