
As the final drum-fill fizzled out, sitting comfortably behind his elevated drum kit, Anderson .Paak humbly uttered, “
we used to go to shows and nobody would care”.
But after three critically acclaimed solo albums, show-stopping work with the likes of Chance the Rapper, ScHoolboy Q and Kaytranada, it’s an idea that’s now very hard to fathom.
Riding high off of 2018’s soulful, gritty ‘Oxnard’ album, the Grammy-winning rapper-singer-drummer from California has come a long way since his early days as Breezy Lovejoy.
Lovejoy would release a few projects, but as he returned to his government name, .Paak’s luxurious blend of soul, hip-hop and electronica was thrust into the limelight through his mesmerizing work on Dr. Dre’s ‘Compton’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ferZnZ0_rSM
Now a Dre-signed prodigy, Saturday’s high-octane antics began with hard-hitting tracks such as the trap-influenced ‘
Bubblin’, and the militant ‘
Who R U?’, both featuring drums that could give ‘2001’ a run for its money.
.Paak’s continuous blending of genres ran throughout his set, opting to turn ‘
Put Me Thru’, a cheeky ode to crazy relationships, into a up-tempo glam-rock anthem, while ‘
Trippy’, a song with a name as woozy as its instrumentation, was brought to life through psychedelic visuals and a captivating reprise of the track’s chorus (“Somewhere in between/you and I will always be/come meet me in the middle’).

Image: @thekatalysts
Unlike other high-profile music artists who too-often feel untouchable, .Paak’s vulnerability and humility have been key in making him such an enamoured figure. His struggles are well documented in his music; family issues, bouts of homelessness, romantic failures, mid-20s angst.
Cuts such as ‘
The Waters’ and ‘
Saviours Road’ provides direct insight into his come-up (“God, if you existin', help my momma get acquitted/if they plottin', then help me see it before they get the drop on me”), while ‘
Heart Don’t Stand A Chance’, a smooth fan-favourite from 2016’s ‘
Malibu’, paints
.Paak as a man eager for intense romanticism, all well from behind a drum kit. The showman makes you admire him, but the human makes you love him.

Live music concerts can sometimes be the setting for intoxication, or simply a super-sized karaoke session. Instead, Victoria Warehouse was the setting for a spectacle, with thousands baring the rain to witness a future legend flourishing in his prime.
As the show closed with ‘
DANG!’, .Paak’s 2015 collaboration with the late Mac Miller, and ‘
Cheers’, the sobering ultimate track to ‘
Oxnard’, the diverse crowd may have gone home feeling sombre, but .Paak’s spine-tingling performance left them speechless.