Last night, Beats Rhymes & Rice did it up again. This time at Northeastern University in Boston, and all I can say is thank you to the folks there for everything, from the hard work it took to find space, to removing that oddly-dressed – yet surprisingly nice - frat out of our green room, to getting us water, to providing us with Jamaican food after the show. (Know this: if you’re running low on funds but need to eat, Jamaican food is one of the best options out there, because you will stay full for hours on only a couple bucks. Thank all that’s good for the beef patty.) Much props to Delia at the Asian American Center and Long.

I have to admit, we had our doubts about the space when we first started scoping it out, because it was a food court, complete with a Wendy’s, a D’Angelos, and a Taco Bell (speaking of which, did anyone notice that the only thing Royce Clayton did during the World Series was talk about getting a free taco at Taco Bell? He didn’t even get on the field, yet he was wearing a mic for the cameras. I have to say, that is somewhat suspicious, I wonder if the league is going to force every team to have one guy they don’t play but wears a mic every game for product placement. Like Carlos Gomez be sitting on the Mets bench asking other players: “have you seen that new Harry Potter movie? You know he can fly!”)

But so, we had our reservations, but by the time everything was set up for the show, it was cool. They had a wall up to block us from having to look at the restaurants the whole time, plus they had given us 5 mics. 5! We only had three people performing, so I tried my best to move from mic to mic and use all of them, because I didn’t want that set up time to have been in vain.

Kiwi rocked off iPod this time, which was crazy, because I kept forgetting there wasn’t a DJ because everything was blended so well. Say word to technology. Bao unveiled a dope new piece that could easily be taken the wrong way by someone who wasn’t listening, so that was very brave and rewarding I think. Later on in the show, I did a song that Kiwi and I worked on together in the green room. The planned dance routine to end the show didn’t go off as planned, because of lack of practice. Don’t worry, we’ve all pledged to do the running man HARD in the mirror every night until the next show.

By the end of the night, it seemed like the crowd was really into it, and that’s the right place to end. If you end the show 5 minutes after folks were into it, then you know, it kinda fizzles. But this time, the end came at the right time, and we stuck around for about an hour talking with cats, so it was the good life. Then over to the Asian American Center and the aforementioned Jamaican food and a session in which students would compliment one of us three, then inadvertently dis the other two. So that was pretty fun.

I also took that opportunity to give them a hard time about having Ron Takaki’s and Regie Cabico’s photos up in frames, whereas our flier was Scotch taped to the wall, but I was just playing. Being brought to a campus with the specific intent of addressing the student population is already a privilege, and it was never something I set out to do when I first started performing, so being where we’re at right now, all I really feel is gratitude for all the people who have made it possible for us to continue doing what we’re doing, most recently folks at Northeastern, so don’t take my bullshit seriously please!

Oh and by the way, that photo of Kiwi rockin up there was taken by Eugene Shih, who contorted himself on the ground in front of the stage right when Kiwi opened up the show. I saw him start moving there out of the corner of my eye, and I didn’t realize he was holding a camera and I thought he was getting ready to break dance. I was thinking like, “damn this dude must have been feening for a minute to start break dancing the first 30 seconds of the show…” So when I looked over and saw it was actually Eugene with the camera, I realized that sometimes I’m like the biggest idiot.

Northeastern really did us right, and I’m especially grateful because this is my city, and they represented it well. I can’t say enough about that.

IMPAACT Conference at UConn tomorrow. See you there!