Adds flame to a huge week
Lined shoulder-to-shoulder dripping with sweat, the beat dropped, and the energy rose as the stage lights beamed across the field as students swarmed the stage to get a glimpse at Waka Flocka Flame.
Student Engagement and Campus Life, alongside the Screaming Javelina Crew, hosted its homecoming concert on Oct. 17 headlined by the famous rapper.
Flocka said he enjoys the energy of a college concert.
“What I love most about colleges is the energy, like college kids they still got the love for life, and I like that y’all got the love to want to be better. I just wanted to show college kids that no matter how rich or famous somebody is they could still be humble,” Flocka said.
With the barricades nearly collapsing and people chanting for Flocka, he performed some of his most streamed songs ever, as he ended the concert with “Hard in Da Paint” and “No Hands.”
“Hard in Da Paint put confidence in me as an artist. It was that record that was the ‘F-you’ record. I made it for Lebron James. It came from a mixtape I did call ‘Lebron Flocka James 2.’ I did it because I felt how Lebron felt when he entered the league; he was just that good,” Flocka said.
Huge events on campus such as the homecoming concert don’t happen on their own, long hours of planning and preparing are what allow the show to go on.
“Screaming Javelina – we have an E board and our team is a student-led team so we’re all students here at TAMUK and we’re very involved in student engagement with our advisers. So, we make sure there is live music and exposure for our students and great opportunities like this one. So, if it wasn’t for us as a team none of this would have happened,” Screaming Javelina Vice President of Music Relations Ramiro Vera said
Organizers said they are happy to provide a concert experience for students.
“I think concerts like this are extremely important. We’ve heard a lot of students say kind of in passing that this is their first concert they’ve been to, or how they had such a great time and they’d remember it forever. Ludacris came to our campus 10 years ago and people are still talking about it, so I think that concerts like this are super important to the student body’s experience,” Campus Activities Coordinator Kelsey Dahlbeck said.