Steve Blake ’05, president of the Slope Day Programming Board announced yesterday to the Student Assembly that Calvin Broadus, also known as rapper Snoop Dogg, will perform on Slope Day this May. Jaceon Taylor, who goes by the stage name The Game will also perform.
The programming board worked with the Minority Concert Fund Advisory Board, the African, Latino, Asian, Native American Students Programming Board and the Cornell Concert Commission in order to bring these acts to campus.
Blake said the chance of bringing Snoop to The Hill had initially been slim, however, after talking with his agent, the performer appeared very interested.
Snoop and The Game will use Cornell as an “anchor” for an upcoming East Coast tour, Blake said. They will most likely be performing at two other schools either before or after Slope Day and then at a number of other venues.
Some S.A. members questioned whether bringing two hip-hop artists would upset or distance some students.
Blake responded by saying that he and the board felt Snoop was a large enough cross-cultural act to appeal to a large audience.
Additionally, the board is in discussion with the agent of another act who “will appeal to cross-genre [tastes],” but Blake refused to give any more details because negotiations are ongoing.
“This is huge in that now alcohol is not the focal point [for Slope Day],” said Joseph S. Scaffido, assistant dean of students.
Scaffido, who is serving as an advisor to the programming board, said that Snoop’s appearance builds on the successful acts of the last two years. Two years ago, Fat Joe and Rusted Root performed and last year Kanye West headlined the day.
Blake and the board were unable to provide The Sun with Snoop’s fee, but said that West received $30,000 for his performance last year.
While some S.A. appeared enthusiastic about the programming board’s selection, many members frowned at some of the Slope Day changes that will take place this year.
Last year, students were allowed to bring up to four guests at $15 per person. This year students may only bring two guests. Tickets must be bought in advance and at a price of $25.
The advance purchase date is set for April 20, 2005. No tickets will be sold at the gate.
The board has not decided how tickets will be sold, and will consider selling them online after the C.U. Programming Board experiments with online tickets for Jon Stewart later this week.
Even if former students want to attend, they must have a current student pay for their guest ticket. The rationale behind this rule is that a significant portion of the concert’s costis covered by each current student’s activity fee.
Josh Bronstein, Vice President of SA Finance had a problem with the guest policy.
“It’s really unfair to deny students’ [friends] because they did not know in advance who was coming when they are paying a student activity fee,” Bronstein said.
Blake responded that the Programming Board and EMS just want to know how many people to expect on the Slope.
“We can't anticipate how many tickets will sell …in order to adequately plan we need to know the number we are going to have and how we are going to handle the crowd,” Blake said.
Gates for the slope will open at 11:30 and the first act will begin around 1:30 and conclude around 4:30.
According to Blake, last year, the Slope reached its crowd peak of 10,000 people at 2:30, 2000 of those were guests. Those numbers are partly the reason for the need to limit the number of attendees.
Kent Hubbell, Dean of Students who serves as an advisor to the board was very excited about the announcement and what it means for the “transformation of Slope Day into the musical event on campus.”
Hubbell also added that since Blake has given him a Snoop CD, he has been listening to a few songs each day after work. When asked, what he thought of the music, Hubbell remarked “I haven't quite taken to the lyrics….they’re very explicit.”
Archived article by Ikea Hamilton
Sun Staff Writer
and
Michael Margolis
Sun Senior Writer