Last week at this summer’s Screamfest ’07 tour at Madison
Square Garden (in New York) T.I.
brought Jay-Z, 50 Cent, Kanye West, Swizz Beatz, Diddy & Ciara all on
stage at the same time. If you haven’t heard about this historic event, check
it right here.
Now with the internet buzzin’ about the event T.I. reflects on his first headlining
appearance at Madison Square. “It was
definitely a fantastic experience on a whole … I was looking forward to
it. I get the ticket numbers every day
before every show, so we’ll know how many people to expect. What kind of crowd.
When I got the ticket number the day of, we were already well above 10,000. Not
counting walkups, not counting contest winners. I knew it was going be a
sold-out show. Then Jay had already confirmed he was gonna come kick it with
me. Then that day Kanye confirmed he was gonna come. Swizz said he was running
late, he was supposed to come for the first half of my set for ‘Bring Em Out.’
He was coming from Philly. I think traffic was holding him up, but he came
right on time,” T.I. told MTV.
“I was running late …
Nobody was answering their phones. So the closer I’m getting to the city, I’m
like, ‘Damn, nobody is answering their phone.’ I don’t know how to get the
credentials. So I decided just walk through the muthafucka. I walked up like,
‘I need to get to the stage.’ The security was like, ‘How do I know it’s you?’
The people in the streets were like, ‘That’s Swizz! She ain’t got no money in
the bank!’”Swizz told MTV about
his lateness.
As Jay-Z and T.I. performed Watch What You Say 50 Cent
ran on stage unannounced.
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“The plan was to
bring Kanye out … I was ready to go. I had my hand on the button. I turn around
and see 50 walking up … ooh! I hold up for a second. I don’t just wanna go
in, it wasn’t according to plan. Everybody was like, ‘Wow.’ You knew from that
point on, this was gonna be a bigger night than planned. I was like, ‘That’s
50! 50 knows how to make a movie out of anything, even if it’s already a
blockbuster!”DJ Drama said, who
was on the 1’s and 2’s as the event went down.
“Jay was looking like,
‘What are you doing? What are you doing walking out in the middle of the show,
man?’ … They thought I was gonna do something because of the way they responded
to me when I walked out,”50
told Whoo Kid during an interview on
Shade45.
Surprised of 50’s
appearance, T.I. knew nothing bad
was gonna go down and continued to rock.
“Me and 50 have been delegating
throughout the tour … We have a mutual respect for one another. We were kicking
it; he was in my dressing room before the show. Him and Yayo, they were in my
dressing room; having drinks and talking shit. Me, him, Maino, the G-Unit as
well as Puff. All of us were in the dressing room kicking it. That [50’s
appearance] was an extension of that moment,” T.I. told MTV. “50 came out,
that was spontaneous, but it was all love … He was welcomed. When he came out,
we rolled with the punches. It wasn’t like he wasn’t welcome. It was like, ’50
coming out, too? Bet,’” T.I.
continued.
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Kanye is now on stage to perform Can’t Tell Me Nothing…
“So I’m walking through the
crowd, no jewelry on in my fuckin’ hoodie. I’m fresh off the road. I’m walking
through the crowd like a regular n—a, and the people see me and were bugging.
I didn’t want to just run up there, ’cause I didn’t know what niggas had
planned. So I made eye contact with Drama and gave him the nod like, ‘I’m
here!’ He gave the signal, and a dude just gave me a mic and pushed me to the
stage. So I walked up to the stage during Jay-Z’s performance of ‘Encore,’ and
when I got up there, I did ‘Money in the Bank.’ You should have heard the
crowd. I thought I was gonna miss that shit, boy. That shit was chaos, B! It’s
the part that’s not calculated that makes it amazing,”Swizz explained.
“An absolute pleasure, a lot of
love … Everybody came through and showed love. It’s rare in hip hop that we
have genuine, positive moments like that. It’s good for us to sit back and
embrace it now. It’s the first moment of that magnitude that I had specific
involvement in. I have been involved in plenty of moments such as that, but for
it to be my show, my set … it’s the biggest thing I’ve been the culprit of. I
feel great about it. Thanks to Jay, Kanye, Puff, 50 and Swizz. Everybody, it
was really like an all-star game. It wasn’t nobody worried about how many
points they were scoring, who sold the most records. It was a celebration and
having a good time,”T.I.
explained.
“It was really like the Finals
was in Madison Square Garden … It was like winning a championship. It was a
good feeling. You seen that glow. Tip was calm, he was in normal form, but
everybody knew how monumental it was. That was big for the game,”DJ Drama continued of the show.
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“It was showtime for real, for
real,” Swizz said. “That sh– blew my mind, B! The way the people spazzed
out, crazy! Everybody was showing each other love. That’s how hip-hop is
supposed to be. I was happy just to be a part of it. That right there needs to
be the next Vibe cover:
‘Hip-Hop Lives!’ From a media
standpoint, at MTV and even people at those magazines, y’all need to make it
big. Cause if we was on that stage and somebody would have got smacked, that
sh– would have been on covers and all over the headlines, so I think people
who’s controlling the media needs to make it big as life.”Swizz finishes up.
T.I. wraps up his
thoughts on the show: “Just anybody
couldn’t have gotten all those people up there at one time. It has to be a
person of great reputation with great social standing in this neighborhood we
call hip hop. I’m real proud of that. It’s not a lot of people who’s cool with
50 and cool with Puff and good with Kanye and cool with Swizz and still get
love in the Garden. Especially being in the Garden and being from the South.
It’s not a lot of people who could have pulled that off. Puff called me and
said, ‘Don’t take that lightly. It’s not a lot of New York niggas who could
have pulled that off. I don’t think I could have gotten all y’all niggas up
there at one time like that.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I recognize it and appreciate it
definitely.’ ”
