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Discovering Section 80 recently (yes I know, I’m late to the (after) party), it’s obvious Kendrick Lamar has star (hiii) power,something that’s been debatably missing on the West Siiiide for a while. Touring now on the BET Music Matters tour with fellow Black Hippy members Ab-Soul and Jay Rock, I knew this show would be dope from the gate. Seeing Black Hippy at Rock The Bells over the summer, these three each and collectively deliver something different.

Arriving at the sold-out show around 8 PM (the line wrapped around three blocks to get in), Fly Union and Stalley (repping Rick Ross’ MMG crew) performed short sets before Jay Rock and Ab-Soul took the stage, hyping the crowd up immediately. The crowd in the pit knew every word to every song and booed when Ab-Soul was cut off abruptly. Suspected that might happen when I saw the set times that had Kendrick Lamar going on around 9:15 PM and it was already 9:30 PM at the time. Opening the curtain around 9:40 PM, a small set featuring a house with cement steps, bars on the windows (nice “hood” touch), a brick wall with religious phrases and “40″ beer bottles littering the stage made me smile. Assuming this was Mr. Lamar’s neighborhood (as opposed to Mr. Rogers), the audience started yelling as soon as he came through the house’s door. BET’s “Lyricist of the Year” took the stage, performing an assortment of tracks from Section 80 and his new album, M.A.A.D City, dropping on October 22.

Doing crowd favorites like ” Hol Up”, “Rigamortis”, “A.D.H.D”, “F*ck Your Ethnicity” and “P&P 1.5″, Kendrick made his 70 min set count in a big way. Surprise guests T.I. and Chronic legend Dr. Dre (doing their song “Compton”) also came through, with the applause and screaming reaching decibels dogs could probably hear. Can confirm “the recipe” for this dope night- mix rising stars and stir to taste. “Draaank”!