Be logical, throw down to Logic's dope beats
The first time I fell in love with Logic, Robert Bryson Hall, he was rapping “Fade Away” while solving a Rubik’s cube on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.” Almost a year later, I was running toward the stage at the College Avenue Gymnasium with my camera as I heard the first few notes of that very song.
At this point, whenever Spotify sends me my end-of-the-month email with my statistics for what I listened to, Logic is pretty much always at the top. When I realized he’d be coming to Rutgers, I immediately rolled my chair over to the photo desk and asked to borrow a camera.
The first opener, a student performer named Javier Mendez, a School of Arts and Sciences sophomore, hyped up the crowd before Topaz Jones took over, performing songs from his newest album “ARCADE.” I had never listened to Jones before, but the New Jerseynative did not disappoint. I gave the album a listen the next day and it’s really amazing. Rooted in hip-hop with and steeped in funk, Jones knows how to write a catchy hook. On Friday night, Jones’s moves really stole the show. Long-haired and long-limbed, the way he contorts himself is incredible.
As great as Jones's show was, by the time he finished and the crowd was waiting for the main act to take the stage, I was sitting on the floor in front of the barricade with my legs stretched out in front of me and camera on my lap. But the moment the lights flashed red and smoke overtook the stage, I jumped to my feet.
Logic started off strong with “Fade Away” from his last album, “The Incredible True Story” — trademark Rubik’s cube in hand as he put his mic on the stand and fiddled with it. I don’t even remember whether he solved it or not, I was so caught up in everything. It was the Friday before Halloween, half the audience was walking around in costumes and I had somehow ended up at "Beats on the Banks" alone on my 22nd birthday to shoot Logic.
The crowd was going wild by this point, and looking around the place I couldn’t believe I was in the exact room I had taken an economics final in a year ago. He followed up by taking the crowd back to the 90s with “Young Jesus.” The only part of the night that I regretted being press at the show was when Logic invited an audience member up on stage to rap it. I realize how jarring a tiny Indian girl rapping God-knows-what would be to an audience, but let me tell you I have been angry-driving to “Young Jesus” for a year now and I know those words by heart.
After he took back the microphone he pulled out a notebook and pretended to read a "journal entry" — also known as “Deeper Than Money” from his most recent release. It was great, don’t get me wrong. The album is super fun and light, so it’s great live, but it wasn’t the highlight by far.
I have a short attention span, so if I’m listening to a 10-minute song all the way through, that’s saying something. If a 10-minute song speaks to me so much that it becomes my favorite song by the artist, and I listen to it over and over again, then I’m absolutely lovestruck. When Logic took the crowd back to his 2014 “Under Pressure” album with the song of the same name, I think I almost died.
While listening to him perform “turn up” (his words, not mine) songs like “Deeper than Money” and “Like Woah” was great and all, “Under Pressure,” as a song, is so stripped down and honest that hearing it in person was unreal. Logic has been through so much in his life — violence, drugs and struggles of growing up biracial — and he flawlessly communicates that in his music while staying accessible. Regardless of all that, he absolutely brought “peace, love and positivity” to Rutgers last Friday.
