Christmas With Curren$y
by Jaz’man Hampton
Five days before Christmas and Trees hosted Dallas with a great show from the rapper Curren$y.
The Jet Life Recording founder is currently on ‘A Cannabis Christmas with Curren$y’ tour. The rare talent engaged Dallas with a short, yet lively performance.
Opening for Curren$y was a savvy lyricist by the name of Real Augustine. The artist informed showgoers that being selected to open for Curren$y during the holiday season was his Christmas gift. Real Augustine continued to express his gratefulness throughout his performance.
Real Augustine grew up on a street named La Cosa in Dallas, per treesdallas.com. La Cosa is also inserted in the title of the project he released earlier this year entitled, La Cosa Vera. The project subsumes eight tracks, which provides the listener with 21-minutes of real-life events that Real Augustine has faced while growing up in Dallas.
Real Augustine sounds similar to an artist like Curren$y, though he was influenced by the likes of Snoop Dogg and Ghetto mafia, per treesdallas.com. The talent has a gift for creating stories and giving a message of empowerment to the youth on songs like ‘Untold Story’ and ‘L.I.F.E’.
On the track ‘Day Ones’ Real Augustine had the DJ cut the beat near the end of the song and he went off acapella. The audience gazed upon Real Augustine as they listened closely to every word. In a room full of serious hip-hop enthusiasts rapping off the beat has to bring the heat, which Real Augustine did.
The artist didn’t seem as solid as he should for a person pursuing rap. It’s clear Real Augustine is taking rap serious due to his social media presence, but he does lack pizazz in the area of performing.
Connecting with an audience that genuinely enjoys serious lyrical bars isn’t hard, but without the spark of enthusiasm, the crowd can be turned away. Showgoers were intrigued with what Real Augustine had to say, however, the performance wasn’t memorable enough for him to gain loyal fans.
Coming out to ‘This and That’ from his 2018 album Fire in the Clouds, Curren$y turned the audience up a few notches.
“What’s happening Dallas?” Curren$y acknowledged the audience. The New Orleans native continued, “I’m not mad about that Saints game, don’t trip, its all good.” Recollecting the 10–13 lost the New Orleans Saints had in a big game against the Dallas Cowboys, nearly a month before the show.
The 37-year-old has been in the music industry since 2002. Curren$y, also known as Spitta, was once a member of the 504 Boyz, a male rap group during the early 2000’s era. Curren$y was an original member of Young Money Entertainment, a label created by rapper Lil’ Wayne as a spin off of Cash Money Records, the label which formerly signed Lil’ Wayne. In 2011, Curren$y constructed his own label entitled Jet Life.
The vet is great at performing live. Sticking with the theme of ‘Fire in the Clouds’, Spitta entered performance mode with ‘300 Thousand’, a song that “pushes for youngin’s to do better”.
Continuing with tracks mixed and released in 2018 Spitta took it back to ‘The Marina EP’, which was produced by Harry Fraud, a producer who makes with Curren$y and other underground artists often.
Transitioning from new to old, Curren$y began spitting tracks like ‘Famous’, ‘King Kong’, and ‘A Gee’ from his Pilot Talk series. Audience members grew in volume when the lyricist performed his older joints.
Curren$ny took breaks between songs to joke and engage with the audience. At the end of his set, Spitta actually took his exit through the crowd, walking through his fans and stopping to speak and show love as he left the building.
All in all, as a King of the underground rap scene Curren$y’s loyal fans show why the vet has been running the underground game for so long. It’s evident that he’s important to the underground world.
