On Saturday, April 16, 2016, hundreds of Colgate students gathered for the main Spring Party Weekend (SPW) event: the Pusha T concert. The concert took place in Sanford Field House from 7 to 10 p.m.

Pusha T is an American Hip-Hop recording artist. Last November, Pusha T was appointed President of G.O.O.D. Music by Kanye West. The songs he performed at Saturday’s concert were primarily from his most recent albums, “My Name is My Name,” and “King Push – Darkest Before Dawn.” He also included songs from his duo Clipse. The concert opened with performances by Vaughn PM, Maliks and DJ Sweeterman.

“I’ve been listening to Pusha T for four years. I was excited to have him at Colgate,” first-year Charles O’Connell said.

“As a fan of rap music, I was fairly excited to see that he would be performing for SPW,” first-year Dalton Bianco said.

However, students also expressed concerns that the rapper was not well received on campus.

“People didn’t seem to be pleased with the choice for SPW. I saw many students whining on social media that the SPW Planning Committee didn’t choose someone who was more famous,” O’Connell said.

“Although he is an impressive guy, his music wasn’t fit for a SPW concert,” first-year George Karamanoukian said. “EDM [Electronic Dance Music] would have been a more appropriate genre of music. Not everyone could follow along to Pusha T’s lyrics,” Karamanoukian said.

Karamanoukian expressed that successful concerts rely on both the performer and the audience.

“Concerts need to be big to be fun. There needs to be a large amount of people where not only are the listeners feeding off of the music, but also feeding off of each others’ energy. I don’t think there were enough people in the large field house to create that effect,” Karamanoukian said.

“I thought the turnout was embarrassing for us as a school, considering the committee went through a lot of effort to get a high caliber rap artist who performed for maybe 100 people,” Bianco said.

Bianco also acknowledged the unease of the artist choice, but recognized the Hip Hop performer’s stage presence and ability as an entertainer.

“Although I love rap music, I tend to find live performances much less enjoyable, and so I went with low expectations. That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed Pusha T’s performance, and thought he proved to be a good live performer,” Bianco said.