Hamilton College’s 2018 Fall Concert will star Waka Flocka Flame and feature Maliibu Miitch.
The College’s Campus Activities Board (CAB) changed its process this year for selecting the Fall Concert’s main performer. In years past, CAB has released an artist survey to Hamilton students, and made requests to their middle agency, Pretty Polly Productions, based the survey results. However, CAB decided to get rid of this method because its slowness sometimes resulted in CAB missing out on artists.
“Based on our experiences, we realized that a lot of colleges have similar budgets as we do, so we are just competing against every school for the same twenty artists. The longer we take to make an artist an offer, the greater the chance there is of another [school] booking that artist on a certain day, making them no longer available for our show,” said Joshua Rothstein ’19, CAB’s Concerts Coordinator.
Instead, CAB issued a genre survey to the College community: “[Students] really wanted a rap show. Some of our most popular shows in CAB’s history have been rap shows and we haven’t had one in a full year,” said Josh.
CAB chose Waka Flocka to headline this year’s Fall Concert because of his professionality and stage presence.
“Our middle agent said that Waka is great to work with, he gives energetic and fun shows, and the students love him. [Therefore], we thought that he would be the best artist within our budget and would give an awesome performance,” said Julia Opatrny ’20, CAB’s Concerts Coordinator.
As of Wednesday, September 26, the show was officially sold out, but there are still “Meet and Greet” tickets with Waka Flocka available for $40.
With that purchase, students will be able to get their own picture with the artist. “[Waka Flocka] loves doing college shows and hanging out with people, so this is a cool opportunity to actually get to meet the performer,” said Josh. Waka Flocka Flame is a male American rapper. Born on May 31, 1986 in South Jamaica, New York, Waka Flocka’s childhood was surrounded by the music industry, as his mom, Debra Antney, was the former CEO of So Icey/Mizay Entertainment and former manager of Gucci Mane. After his breakthrough single “O Let’s Do It” (2009), Waka Flocka dropped his debut album
Flockaveli
(2010). The album featured some of Waka Flocka’s most popular singles, like “No Hands” featuring Roscoe Dash and Wale, “Hard in Da Paint”, and “Grove St. Party” featuring Kebo Gotti. Waka Flocka’s newest album
Salute Me or Shoot Me: The Extended Clip
(2018) includes fifty tracks and features artists like Future,
Offset, Gucci Mane, and Chief Keef. To complement Waka Flocka’s performance, CAB wanted to both hire another rapper and give a platform to a female artist. Julia and Josh found that Maliibu Miitch fit the bill.
“Josh was working at Atlantic Records this summer and Maliibu is signed to them, so he knew about her. I liked her too, so we pursued and booked her [from there],” said Julia.
Josh added that Julia and he are also excited to have Maliibu Miitch at the Fall Concert because from the time the board started keeping track of CAB events since 2011, Maliibu will be the first female rapper that CAB has ever brought to campus.
“Before Julia and I got into this position, CAB had an interesting record. For example, Class & Charter [hosted] three white [male] bands in a row, so we’ve tried to be conscious of who we hire and to invite as diverse of acts as possible. A misconception about CAB is that we hire artists who we want to bring to campus, [when in reality] we bring who we think is going to be the best fit for campus. However, we definitely have more freedom with selecting the openers, which is one of the fun parts about it. We are really proud to have Maliibu […] she’s a rising star and we think that she’s going to be fantastic,” said Josh.
Maliibu Miitch is a female American hip-hop artist and rapper. Born on March 4, 1991 in North Carolina, Maliibu had a tumultuous childhood that lead to her pursuing music as a career. During her time between North Carolina and New York City, Maliibu experienced challenges involving her parents, drugs, poverty, and gangs. These obstacles serve as an inspiration for her music. Maliibu dropped her debut mixtape
Maliibu Miitch Top 5
in 2017 and recently released notable singles like “Bum B*tch” (2018) and “Give Her Some Money” (2018).
After booking both artists, CAB focused on publicity for the event, which included a hype video and posters. The board is currently making stickers and possibly some merchandise to further promote the event.
“The first hundred people that come to the show will get a free item, so stay tuned for what that is,” said Julia.
In addition to promoting the event, CAB has worked with numerous departments to organize the Fall Concert. The board met with Campus Safety to discuss security, has hired Wizzard Sound Company from Syracuse, New York to help set up the sound and stage equipment, and communicated with Pretty Polly Productions for rider information. Josh recalled that in the past, requests have included food, beverages, clothing, and even toothbrushes.
“Sometimes [the performers] arrive and they either haven’t slept or it’s been a long day of travel, so I always tell people that it is really important to nail exactly what [the artists] want in their dressing room because that totally sets the stage for how the night is going to go,” said Josh.
CAB chose to host the event in the Annex because they believed it had a better financial benefit than using an outdoor venue.
“Having a show outdoors costs more just in terms of the equipment, so we figured that it would be better to bring an artist that people are excited about versus compromising our artists to having the Fall Concert outdoors,” said Julia.
The significant hype from both concertgoers and CAB members regarding the Fall Concert shows promise that this event could be a major highlight for the Hamilton Community this year. The Fall Concert will be on Oct. 5, 2018 in the Annex, with doors opening at 7:30 PM.
