Cordae helped heat up a frigid New York City on Sunday night with a blend of fiery bars and slow-cooked jams delivered to a packed room at Webster Hall.
The 24-year-old rapper is currently in the middle of an international tour for “From a Birds Eye View,” his second studio release and first after the doubly Grammy-nominated “The Lost Boy.” Despite his youth and the ongoing pandemic, the Gen-Z favorite drew a sold-out crowd of mostly high-schoolers and twenty-somethings ready to vibe out to feel-good songs like “Want From Me” and “C Carter,” and to jump around to pumped-up hits like “Broke as Fuck” and “Have Mercy.”
Cordae has been building a following for years, first as a member of the rap group YBN and more recently as a solo artist. Though he made some hits alongside founders YBN Nahmir and YBN Almighty Jay, Cordae always seemed destined for more. He made arguably the best decision of his nascent career to drop the YBN from his name, all while keeping his expert-level flows, clever wordplay and earnest lyrics about his upbringing. With “The Lost Boy” in summer 2019, Cordae came out of the gate strong, receiving overwhelmingly positive reviews and Grammy nominations for best rap album and rap song for “Bad Idea.” Before releasing his follow-up, “From a Birds Eye View,” in January, he made c-suite moves and launched his own record label Hi Level, which he describes as “a family and way of life” that produces art of the highest level.
Before Cordae hit the stage, hip-hop group BLK ODYSSY and R&B singer Justine Skye warmed up Webster Hall, which was already packed full with an eager crowd. A DJ pumped up the audience with Kanye West’s “Bound 2” and the epic classical cantata “O Fortuna,” which seemed hilariously out of place at a rap concert but also perfectly fit with Cordae’s brand of irreverent rhymes.
The show kicked off with “Shiloh’s Intro,” the opening track of “From a Birds Eye View,” and Cordae ran on stage to perform “Sinister” in a puffer jacket and gloves — it was a chilly New York night, after all. Then he got the crowd jumping with “Have Mercy,” the lead single from “The Lost Boy,” and threw it back for day-one fans with “Kung Fu,” the fast, high-intensity song from 2018’s “YBN: The Mixtape.”
The strobe lights dimmed and Cordae got more soulful with a string of slower, funkier, R&B-tinged songs like “Thanksgiving” and “Bad Idea.” To match the more introspective, personal songs, the singer opened up to the audience about his recent struggles, revealing that he had “been going through it like a motherfucker the last couple weeks” and “was even thinking about canceling this tour” before thinking better of it. He later went so far as to call everyone in the crowd his family, not just his fans or supporters. The sincerity and vulnerability built a genuine connection between the artist and the crowd, which made the slowed-down songs seem like an intimate concert despite people being packed in.
From the hyped-up bangers to melodic jams, Cordae kept the show balanced and moving quickly right up until the finale. The only single that didn’t translate as well live was the Anderson .Paak-featured “RNP,” which sorely missed the back-and-forth chemistry between .Paak and Cordae. Before signing off with a rousing reprise of “Broke as Fuck,” Cordae thanked the attendees for spending their Sunday night with him. The crowd chanted for more, but better to end on a high note with people begging for an encore rather than coming to a sputtering halt. At just 24, Cordae is one of the most promising young artists out there, and Sunday night at Webster Hall proved just how bountiful his career can be.
