February 12th - Bilal and The Foreign Exchange @ Centerstage Theater

Last month, when I discovered Bilal and The Foreign Exchange were going to be performing in Atlanta over Valentine's Day weekend, I reminded my man an average of once a day that we should definitely be AT THAT. The Foreign Exchange is a Neo Soul music group born out of the genius of the Okayplayer online community. Two artists, Phonte of North Carolina and Nicolay of Holland exchanged music and lyrics with each other over the course of a year. Through this foreign exchange, they put together their debut album before even meeting in person. Now that's the power of the internet at work because their music is BOMB!!!! They have a second album out now and their song Daykeeper is up for a Grammy. Naturally, Sweet Love and I were extremely geeked about going. We liked Bilal and all but we really wanted to see The Foreign Exchange.

Thus we went about the business of securing tickets, getting haircuts and choosing attire all to be met with snow. It motherfu*&%n snowed for four hours the day of the concert! When it snows in Georgia, it might as well be the end of the world. Ain't nobody out on the streets. Ain't no more milk or bread at the store. Everybody locks themselves away in their houses and prays for the speedy emergence of a relentlessly hot sun. Sweet Love and I decided that the elements would not prevent us from venturing into the city to see our beloved TFE. We layered ourselves with thermals, sweaters and coats, wiped the snow off of the car and carefully crept our way through the streets to downtown Atlanta. We parked about a block away from Centerstage Theater and clutched each other as we tipped down the icy sidewalk. Smiling ear to ear at our own bravery and resolve, we were met at the doors by signs proclaiming "Due to weather TFE will not be performing." BULL. SHIT. After buying a couple of B-52's and finding seats, we decided to stick around for Bilal. Afterall, we did own two of his CDs.

We were in good company with a nice crowd of 30-somethings as local neo-soul artist Anthony David took the stage and gave us quite a nice performance. He had excellent stage presence and a really sweet singing and rapping voice. He performed a nice little duet with a young lady named Algebra (oh Black people and their names) and tickled us as he did a cover of a Lil Wayne song with his own lyrical twist. See below.

Following Anthony David, an unnamed comedian took to the stage. He chose to spend about a good fifteen minutes discussing the merits of giving and receiving oral sex. Of course, he focused more so on the receiving and than the giving. It was funny because most of what he said rang true. What was even funnier was the crowd's reaction to the subject matter. It is truly amazing just how conservative we colored folk are when it comes to the discussion of sex. Black women simply do not admit to the activities in which they participate behind closed doors and in the presence of their women, Black men will completely shut up as well. The laughter was stifled at some points and almost everyone refused to raise their hands when the comedians posed certain questions. I personally feel that I'm too old to be embarassed about nature and since I didn't know anyone there I laughed my ass off. Blame it on the B-52 (yeah right).

Next, Bilal's band took the stage playing their respective instruments. Bilal, himself, came swaggering, all slew-footed, out onto the stage wearing dark glasses, wailing into his mic. Sweet Love and I immediately gathered that he was drunk and/or high. I guess every neo-soul artist is getting into the habit of cutting their hair because his signature dreadlocs had been replaced with a gumby-esque haircut. Okay. We sat back and listened to him singing For You and Something to Hold On. He's got this crazy falsetto thing that he does and you can tell that Prince is one of us his major influences. We liked. He was jammin.' Especially when he pleased the crowd with Sometimes and White Turns to Grey.

Bilal's antics on stage were just hilarious. At one point he said "Hole up, we ain't done no sound check so our shit is all fucked up." At another point he said, "What's up Detroit! Well that's where it feels like I am with all this snow and shit." He forgot the lyrics to Sometimes and kept stopping and restarting the song and he looked like he was going to fall right into the crowd when he decided to stand on one of the speakers. But when he covered Thelonious Monk's Round Midnight, we had a new respect for him. Dude is a true artist who loves the music. We were very glad that we'd given his live performance a chance. We were still bitter about The Foreign Exchange though.

Bilal ended the show with Soul Sista and then we left. It took us nearly two hours to get home due to the road conditions. Idiots were driving way to quickly on the icy freeways and were slipping and sliding all over the damn streets. When going up hills, some cars were sliding in reverse. It was frozen hell. We decided that we wouldn't venture out in Georgia snow ever again...unless The Foreign Exchange comes back.