'I live right here.' Dave Chappelle crashes Cincinnati Music Festival Saturday night
Everything was going as planned at the Cincinnati Music Festival Saturday night until Dave Chappelle showed up.
Norman Brown wowed the crowd with his "spirit catcher" guitar solos. Avery Sunshine lifted everyone's spirits with heartwarming anthems and banter with her guitarist and husband, Dana Johnson. P-Funk Connection gave up the funk and tore the roof off the sucker. Babyface had the whole crowd singing along, and falling back in love with him.
Then Dave Chappelle got on stage.
Dave Chappelle talks Ohio
The first time Chappelle hopped on stage, it was to introduce the headliner, Snoop Dogg:
"I pulled up tonight just to let everyone know in the area, thank you for letting me live a normal life. Thank you for letting my family be safe." Then he proceeded with introducing Snoop, "With the east coast, west coast feuding, he was always Switzerland. He was always team Hip-Hop. Please make some noise. Please make some noise for the legend, S-n-o-o-p D-o-g-g!"
It was after the show, after Snoop had said goodbye to Cincinnati, and walked offstage, that Chappelle really took the spotlight.
"Ohio!" Chappelle called out to the dwindling crowd. Many concert-goers were booking it out of Paycor Stadium to beat the traffic. "Ohio let's go! From this state we can change the world. Let's see what we can do if we get a chance. I live right here. I live right down the road."
Chappelle recently amassed large swaths of real estate in Yellow Springs, near Dayton, and has said he intends on "restoring the cultural and creative economy."
After his short speech, Chappelle asked the drummer to lay a beat down. After a few moments of coordination, the comedian was rapping the first verse of Rakim's "Paid in Full." By the time he got to the hook, Chappelle had lost his luster.
"Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, yo, it's the moment to go. Goodnight." And he walked off.
Highlights from CMF Saturday night
But beyond Dave Chappelle, Saturday night at Cincinnati Music Festival was full of highlights, including tributes to late, great musicians.
Avery Sunshine shouted out Aretha Franklin, saying, "Every chance I get, I gotta play some Aretha," before performing an artful rendition of Franklin's "Day Dreaming" (1972). Babyface paid tribute to Whitney Houston, playing a video of Houston performing "Exhale (Shoop Shoop)" (1995), which Babyface had produced and written. Snoop, in turn, paid tribute to Hip-Hop's patriarchs, Biggie and Tupac, performing a song from each of their collections, one after the other.
Want the full scoop on Cincinnati Music Festival? Check out the highlights from Thursday and Friday night.
The award for loudest sing-along at Cincinnati Music Festival 2023, however, went to P-Funk Connection for their spirited rendition of their ancestral group's biggest hit, "Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker)" (1975).
Everyone in Paycor Stadium Saturday night knew the lyrics, and everyone felt the funk.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Dave Chappelle, Snoop Dogg and Babyface at Cincinnati Music Festival