BY ELI EPSTEIN-DEUTSCH

In print | October 5, 2006

A mind-boggling array of interests - commercial, political, theological, culinary, nefarious - competed for the attentions of meandering college students gathered along Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin Parkway for the Campus Kickoff 2006, a hodgepodge of free cultural events, faux-extreme sports and full-service advertising designed to convince area undergrads of the city’s economic viability and commitment to kick-ass popular entertainment. To that last end, the planners booked the overweight N.Y. rap sensation Fat Joe, whose self-described street raw sound was crafted on the “bullet-riddled” sidewalks of the Bronx at the apex of the rampaging 80s crack epidemic, for the headliner spot on the main outdoor stage.

Some in the Swarthmore community expressed skepticism over the legitimacy of this choice. “Fat Joe is not a prominent rapper … he had a hit like two years ago but has since faded into obscurity,” Zach Clark ‘10 said. "The only reason anyone’s heard of him is that he’s like 500 pounds." Claire Noble ‘10, however, insisted that “Fat Joe is 125 percent legit.” I was unable to get a definitive read on whether anyone still cared about the flabby MC’s acerbic dispute with 50 Cent, his oft-mocked fear of flying, or the experimental beats he laid down for his recent Atlantic Records release, All-or-Nothing. It remained to be seen what vision for contemporary hip-hop Fat Joe would bestow upon an impressionable collegiate throng in the afternoon’s final performance.

While pondering some of these issues in the early hours of the fair, I made a hearty meal of samples from the various booths and washed it all down with at least seven complimentary shots of Slammers, a beverage innovation which marries traditional cow’s milk to a wide assortment of popular flavors, now available in select stores. The extra-protein variety tasted like it had curdled, and the Starburst flavor was undeniably weird, but the Milky Way was just short of frothy bliss. For dessert I snacked on Nutter Butters proffered by a volunteer for the punny mayoral candidate Michael Nutters (or maybe Michael Butters, I forget), who engaged me in a conversation about police shortages.

Food merges with politics merges with Internet banking merges with sex merges with social responsibility: turn around one way and someone is offering you a chance to get involved in fair trade coffee - wait a minute, that person is wearing a Starbucks apron! - and the other way you’re handed a gift basket with an exciting brand of lube. At some point you begin to lose track of the difference between signing up for one of several new online networking sites and joining the religion of Islam — both were booths at the Kickoff with glossy pamphlets and e-mail lists. At one point a young festival staff member rushed up to a bemused spike-haired punk and inquired with unfocused enthusiasm, “Would you like to buy … something?” Would you like to buy into something? Eat something? Worship something? Make love to something? Take up the banner for something?

I was doing my best to duck away from the swarming pamphleteers and make my way to a voter registration table, when I was distracted by a sunken-eyed zombie, blood-streaked face glinting sickly in the bright sun, who scratched at me with fetid nails and tried to stuff some sort of flyer into my defensively poised hand. Apparently, at this all-encompassing gala, even the undead could be respected sponsors. I struck at the creature and it reeled back, leaving behind a smell like burnt hair and a grotesque image on the retina.

Almost as visually compromising was a pair of skin-baring white hip-hop dancers who gyrated gracelessly on soapboxes wearing midriff beaters and tiny shorts in a demonstration so trampy and awkward that it fell degrees short of erotic, to understate the case. Harrison Magee ’09 complained of cross-sensory aftereffects resulting from its extreme poor taste — a lingering tactile and auditory unpleasantness. It became psychically necessary to retreat from the chaotic scene on the Parkway and head towards refuge in one of the many nearby museums offering free admission that day to college students, which included the Rodin Museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, the Eastern State Penitentiary, the Museum of Medical Oddities and the Please Touch Museum, all housing venerable exhibitions.

On the way out of the Parkway, I stopped in the name of journalistic thoroughness to witness brief moments of the TNT Red Bull Freestyle Motocross, which turned out to be far less explosive and freewheeling than its name suggested. One trick prompted a spectator to mutter, “Maybe that was cool when Evil Knievel did it in the 70s.” And right about then, a couple of 70s-era, bushy-bearded, red-spandexed bicyclists rolled by on one-speeds, displaying style transparently superior to that of the official motorized performers. I walked the way these old school bikers were going, towards the side streets.

The kid-centric Please Touch Museum on North 121 Street offered respite from the grandiose diversions of the Kickoff in the form of a tinier, more whimsical environment. There, it is very possible for the wistful college-age visitor to romp with the “Wild Things,” whip up a fanciful dessert in the “Night Kitchen,” feel appropriately lecherous in a surreal rendering of Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland and ultimately come to terms, through the innocent eyes of a child, with the hard consumerist realities of post-industrial life by exploring an interactive replica of a supermarket complete with a deli counter, inflationary pricing, and shelf displays stylized enough to gladden the heart of Andy Warhol.

By the time I emerged from that rabbit hole and made it back to the Kickoff, Fat Joe’s openers were already warming the main stage. Attractive couples in pastel suits demonstrated Latin ballroom dancing (learn how at http;//centercitydance.com), while a troupe of break-dancers moved as if apprehensive of the beat, perhaps due to dread over the impending arrival of Terror Squad, but more likely because it made for an interesting and hip effect.

At last, the Latino rhyming legend on whose immensity the credibility of the entire festival rested, the ever-corpulent Fat Joe, made his entrance to joyous cheers and applause. It was immediately clear that the rotund rapper’s stage persona had achieved world-class polish. His sneer, somehow affable and threatening at the same time, conveyed disgruntled self-assurance, while his bearing demonstrated an utter cool befitting a Zen monk. Despite a skyrocketing Body Mass Index, Fat Joe navigated the floor with enviable elegance, using his bulk to lend his succinct moves a gravitas that a skinnier MC might have been unable to muster, and even employing his sweat rag as an effective dance prop.

Fat Joe and his rough and ready entourage, Terror Squad, flowed infectiously over punishing beats, and those in attendance responded with near-primal fervor, singing along heartily with each hook. “Crack! Crack! Crack!” bellowed the crowd, prompted by the portly powerhouse at work on stage. In general, Fat Joe extolled the virtues of hard drugs over scholastic dedication, commenting at one point, “I never went to college … I’m a crackometrician.”

It would be valid to suggest that “It’s a cold world, and this is ice / Half a mil’ for the charm, nigga this is life,” is about as topical and incisive as a Fat Joe lyric ever gets, but it would also be to entirely miss the concept — Fat Joe is inherently a blunt, macho instrument, self-designed for the purpose of sending any given mass of dimly hedonistic, pop-leaning youth into a rollicking frenzy. Based on his Philly show, it seems he is poised to bring about the triumph of his cause and the preeminence of his particular genre, providing at last a concrete answer to the pervasive question, “what has happened to hip-hop?”

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