Aiding Mahomes’ charity, Kansas City’s Tech N9ne delivers one of his best concerts
Tech N9ne looked over his shoulder near the conclusion of his 80-minute performance at Silverstein Eye Centers Arena on Saturday before admitting, “I keep waiting for Patrick Mahomes to run up on us.”
The rapper’s Gift of Rap concert benefited the 15 and the Mahomies Foundation, a children’s charity founded by the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback.
Even though Mahomes didn’t make an appearance, the show was one of the most satisfying Tech N9ne concerts in recent years. The reinvigorated Kansas City native, born Aaron Dontez Yates, bestowed seasonal cheer on an audience of about 3,000.
The concert capped a year in which Tech N9ne, 48, released his 21st studio album, maintained a relentless tour schedule and headlined the daylong StrangeFest in the Power & Light District. “Monica,” a rugged collaboration released this month with the stylish New York trio Flatbush Zombies, further verifies his ongoing relevance.
He performed new material like “ChukiFever,” long neglected tracks like “I’m a Slacker,” and essential favorites like “Einstein,” the anthem that supplanted Leiber and Stoller’s “Kansas City” as the definitive song of hometown pride for thousands of area residents. That refreshed set list reversed a distressing pattern of predictability that marred TechN9ne’s recent outings.
During a rendition of the deep cut “I Get It Now,” Tech N9ne emphasized the line “I’ve come to realize I’ll never fit in so it’s my duty to make sure I stand … out.” Even though he’s one of the most commercially successful musicians from Kansas City, Tech N9ne remains bitter about the scarceness of critical praise and the relative lack of mainstream acceptance for his sinister fusion of rap and rock.
The perceived exclusion was manifested in versions of aggrieved material like “Fragile,” an examination of artistic insecurity, the threatening “Dysfunctional” and the disturbed “Am I Psycho?” Rather than demonstrating a form of psychosis on a reading of his 2015 hit “Hood Go Crazy,” Tech N9ne made it clear he’s absolutely mad about Kansas City.
King Iso, the first of three opening acts affiliated with Tech N9ne’s Strange Music record label, shares his boss’s fascination with psychology. He concluded his set with a chant of “mental health matters.” The pop artist Mackenzie Nicole responded to a lukewarm reception by acknowledging that “Strange Music is doing pop music, and some people don’t know how to respond to that.”
Stevie Stone, a gruff rapper with a voice like a dirty ashtray, was embraced by the audience. Yet only Tech N9ne possessed enough talent and charisma to make Saturday’s audience indifferent to the absence of Patrick Mahomes.
Tech N9ne set list
Chuki Fever; Drink Up; Anxiety; Straight Out the Gate; Dysfunctional; Riot Maker; Einstein; E.B.A.H.; Am I a Psycho?; B.I.T.C.H.; Like I Ain’t; Speedom; Spaz; Bitches I Know; Uralya; I Get It Now; Save Yourself; Fragile; I’m a Slacker; Victory; Who You Came to See; Erbody But Me; a cappella medley; Hood Go Crazy; Who Raised You?; I’m a Playa; Stamina.
This story was originally published December 15, 2019 at 10:30 AM.