Otherworldly approach from Kanye West
Reprinted from late editions of yesterday's Globe.
MANSFIELD - While his peers at the top of the hip-hop heap dedicate themselves to greater and greater heights of entrepreneurship, Kanye West has set his sights on scaling new artistic peaks. With his "Glow in the Dark" tour - which pulled into the Tweeter Center Thursday night - the thinking man's rapper reimagines the rap concert as a cohesive creative statement.
In the bargain, West accomplishes a feat of unprecedented visual, conceptual, and egotistical proportions.
At once cinematic, operatic, and animated, "Glow in the Dark" presents West as a space traveler on a mission to explore the universe for new sources of inspiration. He crash-lands on an unknown planet, suggested onstage with an arresting mix of media: spinning galaxies, colorful starbursts, and anime-style spaceship interiors flow by on a panoramic widescreen, while a ship's control panel hangs suspended above the rocky, fog-infested terrain, on which our hero roams and raps.
The metaphor is clear: West finds himself in a creative vacuum, and that's where he's destined to remain, sharing the barren wasteland with the only person qualified to plumb the mysteries of the universe: himself.
Band conveniently closeted out of sight under the mammoth set, West strings his songs together in a loose narrative. The material is only occasionally relevant to the story line, and by careful design: Jane, the spaceship's computerized voice, animates as a glittering virtual vixen during "Gold Digger." "Jesus Walks" follows a bargaining session with the Almighty, during which our hero vows to "stop spazzing out at awards shows" if he arrives safely home. And just when West is about to give up hope, a disembodied angel (a.k.a. one of the backup singers) belts a restorative cover of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'."
West raps with depth and power for more than an hour without break, and he's a potent enough performer (especially when armed with an artful battery of visual accoutrements) to carry a solo show. But there were stretches when the collective energy of human interaction - a fundamental element of live musical performance and, more critically, life itself - was missed. The only moment of real humanity arrived when West stood stock-still center stage to sing "Hey Mama," the song he wrote for his recently deceased mother. Yet during those few minutes, West seemed more isolated than ever. And maybe that's his point. It's lonely at the top. Fortunately, West has invited a few friends along for the ride.
Rihanna has grown - darker, harder-hitting, and more sensual - since bursting onto the scene in 2005. Thursday night, in molded leather on a space-age set and surrounded by cat-suited dancers frolicking on faux-Kryptonite, the singer briefly revisited her mellow island roots on "Pon de Replay" but found a fresh (and welcome) feistiness for the modern mash-up "S.O.S. (Rescue Me)" and her ubiquitous smash "Umbrella."
Super-producers the Neptunes - Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo - and their pal Shay Haley moonlight as N.E.R.D., an alternative rap-rock band whose pummeling set featured two drummers, heavy guitar grooves, and a beastly bottom end. Williams isn't much of a singer or rapper, but he's a persuasive frontman - as charismatic as his band's rough-and-ready mix of riffs, funk, and flow.
Lupe Fiasco - three stellar vocalists in tow - kicked off the concert with a nimble, quietly urgent set that wove jazzy pop melodies into thoughtful narratives about the culture of skateboarding, the perils of stardom, and the ravages of war.
Joan Anderman can be reached at anderman@globe.com. For more on music visit boston.com/ae/music/blog. 