Chris Brown treats Nigerian fans to a night of lewd lyrics, mad music and dance

Chris Brown performs ‘Azonto (freestyle)’ with Nigerian pop star Wizkid during the Lagos leg of the Carpe Diem World tour, December 22, 2012

It was a wicked and wild set; Chris Brown’s Lagos outing at the convention centre of Eko hotels on Saturday December 22.


The 12 time Grammy nominee and multi-platinum selling singer made sure there were no restrictions when he returned to Nigeria for the second time last weekend. And, performing before an assorted crowd of mostly teenagers and young adults, he smoked marijuana, repeatedly used raw, uncensored language, and lewd lyrics, to the delight of fans who – not surprisingly- gave unanimous approval.

But Brown’s night was not only characterised by obscenities and profanities. Most of his lyrics also talked about love and life; about romance and relationships and disappointments. And the 23 year-old gave a maestro’s performance; he and his band of six.

He had every reason to: The concert, one of many on his on-going world tour, comes at a time when he’s working hard to reclaim lost fans and glory, and put his career back on track. He was handsomely paid for his Lagos gig too, with NET investigations revealing he pocketed up to $1m for a performance that lasted one hour forty minutes.

With an all-black ensemble, the singer opened his performance with beautiful multimedia, as guests who had waited impatiently for him to come out went into a frenzy, wailing and jumping. Song and choreography occupied the next four minutes, as he worked with two back up singers and four dancers to rev up the crowd’s energy.

With the entire auditorium in his palms, he moved on into the night, performing ‘Can only imagine’, ‘Forever’ and ‘She ain’t you‘, all for 16 minutes straight.

Other joints included ‘Head’, Birthday Cake, Crew Love and Take You down, all delivered with the kind of dancing that’s become his signature – smooth gliding, intermittent raunchy moves (including that ‘crotch action’), fast breaks, and unexpected acrobatics reminiscent of James Brown and Michael Jackson.

With fans singling along to his lyrics, the singer often encouraged engagements even though he rarely took time of singing and dancing to interracct

And, as his performance went over 30 minutes, he seemed to go flat, leaving fans behind – as one fan said ‘he’s lost us’.

But he knew exactly what to do: he switched on the heat, taking off his hat and his top, at exactly 12:55am. And that was when the madness began; kicking off a monster set that delivered ‘Look at me now’, ‘No bullshit’, ‘Deuces’, ‘I’m moving up’, and ’Don’t judge me’.

When you thought the night was at its wildest, Wizkid, the viral Nigerian pop star jumps on stage to his hit ‘Azonto (Freestyle)’; with brown dancing and ad libbing, as Wiz thrilled the guests this minute, while doing an Azonto dance duet with Brown the next.

Taking back his stage at 1:15AM, Breezy goes into endless medleys, obviously having fun as he occupied the entire stage, before, shockingly, opening the performance of ‘Yeah yeah yeah‘ with four back flips. That energy stays, as he sings ‘Dont wake me up’, with almost everyone singing alone.

Pause.

‘How many of y’all smoke weed?’ He lights a wrap, gets busy with that as he says something like ‘smoke weed everyday…’; before belting a new song; ‘Turn up the music’.

As if to test whether he’d given Lagosians a good night, he made a false exit, calling it a day and thanking fans for the love. But the screams for a encore were so deafening they could have brought down the building. And Brown returned, pleased to do a few more minutes before running off…

Very great outing. If every stop of his Carpe Diem world tour goes this way, then it could mark a very great comeback for a man whose career has been plagued by the drama of the Rihanna assault, twitter outbursts, fan apathy and failed singles.

Countries still expecting him should be warned though: Chris Brown’s concerts are not for kids; not even fit or decent for teenagers. Brown, and the kind of show he gave here should be R18.