In terms of events on campus, the concert hosted by Colorado Mesa University’s Programming Activities Council (PAC) is the most anticipated event of the year.
This year’s choice for the concert is Lil Yachty and Dizzy Wright as the opener; and while there are plenty of critics against the choice, there are plenty of reasons to get behind PAC’s choice.
It is obviously impossible for CMU to host a star like Drake or Jay-Z, but the choice of Lil Yachty fits the description of past concerts PAC has had success with. Lil Yachty joins Macklemore and G-Eazy as rappers with respectable prominence in the mainstream, but not quite reaching superstardom yet.
Lil Yachty is still a well-known name across the country, and is another young rapper willing to come to our school.
What more should students expect? PAC has a near-impossible job to please nearly 11,000 students with a music choice. First thing they did was ask students on social media what genre of music they would like to have.
The poll showed rap as the favorite, so PAC followed what the people asked for and pursued a rapper.
Maybe Lil Yachty isn’t what those students had in mind when it came to a rap concert. Fair, but for $65,000 PAC got a rapper that is first and foremost affordable.
Post Malone is one rapper that CMU students had high demand for, but a quick Google search enquiring Malone’s availability shows that he requests at least $100,000 per show, way over PAC’s budget.
Other rappers that are too expensive? Even in 2014 when Complex did an article showing off the average asking price for a rapper artists like Mac Miller, 2 Chainz and Childish Gambino were way too expensive.
And quite frankly I have no interest in seeing the affordable acts like Riff Raff. In terms of price, PAC agreed on a reasonable fee that doesn’t just pay for Yachty, but his manager and other staff members.
Did I mention concert tickets for student are completely free? Don’t think doing that is going to gain CMU or PAC a massive profit to afford a bigger name, and I think charging for the concert will get more heat from students than any music choice.
Let’s not forget Colorado Mesa University is still located in Grand Junction. Many famous rappers ask for insane demands, whether that be luxury cars or five-star hotels, that this city can’t afford.
Can you really see an influx of popular rappers drive a Bugatti around the streets of Grand Junction? Where would PAC even find a car like that? You really think Post Malone or Travis Scott are willing to stay in the DoubleTree by Hilton?
At the end of the day, PAC did the best job they could. Is Lil Yachty a music icon loved my the masses?
No. Does he have songs with good beats that will get CMU students on their feet with his up-tempo music and is he someone most people at least have heard of before? Yes. It is a limited budget, folks.
Good luck finding any school with less than 20,000 students having a prayer of booking super popular acts.
PAC met the demands of the people by finding a rapper that met their budget. I don’t know a lot of Lil Yachty’s songs, but I can’t wait to go the a free concert that has music I can dance to and have a good time.
