Divisive Reactions To Rapper Tech N9ne Performance At Boulevard Brewing Festival

Boulevardia, Boulevard Brewing’s annual festival drew huge crowds of beer and music lovers in Kansas City over the weekend, many of whom had mixed reactions to the event’s music headliner, underground rap star Tech N9ne.

A sprawling beer meets music meets carnival and arts event, Boulevardia has become an incredibly hot ticket in Kansas City, as has Tech N9ne a local rapper with a huge national following.

But in spite of the enormous popularity of both Boulevard Brewing’s ambitious festival and of acclaimed independent rapper Tech N9ne (who also comes from Kansas City) some attendees weren’t sure that they were necessarily a fit.

And the fact that Tech N9ne’s special collaboration beer with Boulevard, Bou Lou, an unfiltered coconut and pineapple wheat ale inspired by his platinum hit song “Caribou Lou,” sold out during his Friday night headline performance, couldn’t marry an audience made up of Technicians (rabid Tech N9ne fans) and those who quite clearly didn’t take to his music.

According to the Kansas City Star, some concert attendees didn’t enjoy the artist’s constant use machine gun sound effects, or his mosh pit incitements “and a set list that included lascivious songs such as “My Wife, My B****, My Girl.”

And the fact that Manchester Orchestra had just played on that torrid evening may have only served to further the musical whiplash and accelerate the sense of cultural divide in the beer-fueled audience.