Crosstalk Is Chet Haze any good live?

Samantha: When Northwestern University students are not busy ruining the lives of Evanston residents or learning how to use a fucksaw, they are talking about campus-celebrity-gone-internet-superstar Chet Haze. So it was more than a little surprising when fewer than 100 people—88, according to the box office—showed up to Chanx’s first show on Wednesday night. Where is your love for one of your own, NU?

But what was more surprising was that the self-proclaimed kid with the silver spoon took the slightly awkward situation in stride. Put in the same situation, this reporter would have said “Adios Motherfucker” to the lackluster crowd after the first song. But Haze did his best to keep the energy up. And—to play devil’s advocate—he wasn’t great, but he wasn’t horrible, either.

Kevin: But still, he was pretty bad. His microphone wasn’t turned up enough, he strutted around an oversized and empty stage with a backing track provided by a sullen DJ with equipment branded with a Red Bull logo, and just got the words out with nothing else added. Sure, he didn’t forget any of his own songs or trip and fall, but it was far from promising. This was like a training wheels performance, and Chanx definitely needed it, barely able to amp up the lame audience to cheer in response to his pleas for Northwestern to make some noise.

He had more stage presence here than he did two weeks ago when he hopped onstage at a performance of Northwestern improv group Out Da Box and gave an impromptu debut of “White And Purple” directly after a sketch that lampooned that very song. Reviews coming out of that performance were that he lacked confidence or stage presence, and a few audience members even booed him in front of his father. By that standard, last night was a step up.

Samantha: The mic point is definitely valid. Both the vocals and the background track should have been louder. But visualizing what he must have been seeing from stage—an auditorium only one-sixth full, with everyone just sitting and staring at him like they were watching a semi-interesting movie—is horrific. The event was a fundraiser for Waa-Mu—a student-written musical. And it was billed as a fashion show, so the majority of the NU populous didn’t seem to even know that Haze was going to be performing. It definitely suffered from lack of publicity. [What? They weren’t reading his tweets?—ed.]

And even though his vocals weren’t as smooth as they were on the Get Hazed mixtape, he seemed to be enthusiastic. In the first set he did three songs, of which “White And Purple” was probably the best. But in his finale he played “Adios Motherfucker” with the help of some guy named Briggs Goldberg and tried to pump up the crowd by running through the aisles giving high fives. Now that is commitment. Kudos for the dedication, Chanx. There is a lot of bad rap out there, and Chet Haze is certainly far from the worst.

Kevin: It was in no way the perfect first show, but Chet’s performance at the event was thrown in at the last minute as a way to boost publicity. His hype man on the final song was his manager, CEO of Kinetik Entertainment, and his fraternity brother, which made that final show of energy even more awkward. The event never seemed to connect the dots anywhere around Northwestern that this was the real live first performance for Chanx, with the fashion always getting top billing. It was sadder that nobody turned out and the show was disorganized than the fact that his performances were underwhelming, but that doesn’t make him a worthwhile live act to watch. 

Despite becoming somewhat of an Internet laughingstock, the guy still has some potential. He’s got a lot of energy, and the fact that he managed to work with the lame crowd to get through his performance with enough gusto to do a lap of high fives around the front row is a little bit admirable, but probably more unintentionally funny than anything. Not many rappers or other performers have their first forays into recorded music or live performance scrutinized like this, but Chet is doing all he can to get up to speed as quickly as possible. He’s starting out, and has a debatable amount of talent to work with, but right now he’s just not good enough to be compelling as anything other than a curiosity. 

Samantha: Long live Chanx! Adios, motherfuckers.