Theophilus London turns U Street Music Hall into a love shack, equipped with screaming female fans, dollar bills, and music that will make you dance.
By: Melissa Henderson
Theophilus London serenading audience member, Photo by Noelle Lindsay
Theophilus London, Brooklyn based electro/hip-hop rapper, performed for a packed house at U Street Music Hall. Doors opened at 9pm, but by 9:30 pm, the fairly small U street music hall was packed with familiar DC natives and hippy college students. Keeping it all in the neighborhood, Brooklyn based rap slash house group Ninjasonik, opened for London and revved up the audience with songs like “art school girls” and a little controversial song “somebody gonna get pregnant.”
Brooklyn base rap group Ninjasonik, Photo by Noelle Lindsay
Killing the fashion faux pas, wearing a fur jacket, skinny jeans with a simple white tee and a hat with bolded “LVERS” on it, part of his new apparel collaboration with FRESH.I.Am creative group, Theophilus London took the stage around 11pm opening with “Strange Love”, which is 80s reminiscent because of the track’s use of deep base and soft bells. He performed all the songs from his new EP entitled “Lovers Holiday.”
Fans singing Happy Birthday to London, Photo by Noelle Lindsay
Nothing short of a young romantic on stage, the ladies at U street Music Hall were definitely hooked to London’s every move. Within the first couple of minutes, a girl found her way to the stage. London serenaded her to the track “Girls Girls $” while she danced freely around the stage and London’s entourage dished out dollar bills to the audience. Another Bieber or shall I say London Lover moment was when he confessed to the crowd that he only came to the district for the girls, and beckoned to the audience if they knew where to find some. About 70 hands eagerly shot up in the air like they knew the answer to an easy math equation in hopes of getting called on stage, a little more up close and personal. His smooth talking, 4- play tracks, took the audience on a lovers holiday. Cute, right? But not sweet cute, more like swag.
London singing "girls girls cash," while fans threw around money dished out by London's entourage. Photo By Noelle Lindsay
Somewhere in the middle of his performance, he cut the music and announced that it would be his birthday in a couple of minutes, which lead to in an inebriated crowd along with Ninjasonik singing “happy birthday”. Suddenly after, Mr. London busts out with a big thank you song performing “Always Love You” (which is a house remix of Whitney’s Houston’s 1992 version), a song off his first project, “This Charming Mixtape,” exclaiming his love for his dedicated fans.
After appearing on the David Letterman Show just a week before and in a few notable magazines, including a spread in GQ Magazine last year, the buzz for London has grown quite a bit. I was happy to see that London, perhaps, graduated from the Brooklyn brownstone make shift performances he use to do in 2009. Good times.
After the show, London signed autographs on shirts, and body parts. While I was standing in the coat check line, an excited and uber star- struck girl behind me got her right breast autographed and commented that she wasn’t going to wash it for months. Pause. The very charming London showed the District an epic time, after all, London exclaimed we are the “progressives” for coming out on a Tuesday night .
London backtage at U Street Music Hall, Photo by Noelle Lindsay
