On Wednesday, April 15, 2020, comedian Chris Turner did a live YouTube stream where he rapped about any topic the crowd gave him. This event was sponsored by SAEC, though not many people got the memo, leaving me to be the only person in the crowd watching for 45 minutes. It kind of just felt like I was Skyping with this guy and was unable to use my microphone or camera. With that said, it really was funny and enjoyable. Basically, this guy is a famous freestyle rapper and comedian. He lives in Los Angeles currently and is from somewhere in the United Kingdom, given his accent as he rapped. When I had opened his livestream on YouTube, it showed Chris standing up talking into a microphone with a picture of the residence halls behind him. It made me chuckle to see that as a background for a performance.
The idea of his live YouTube shows is that they are equivalent to seeing him perform live, where I am assuming the crowd yells out ideas at him to rap about. He then plays a random beat and comes up with a rap including and about the words that you have given him. Since I was the only person in the crowd, it took away from probably the majority of the experience, because it felt like I was just dictating what this guy was going to rap in front of me. With that in mind though, it was enjoyable. I was able to rope my roommate into joining the livestream as well for maybe five minutes which was fun. Chris’s whole time slot was 45 minutes, with 40 minutes rapping and 5 minutes for a Q&A. The Q&A ended up just being us talking which was once again, nice but also super awkward being the one and only viewer. I wish SAEC had advertised for this event more, because I think it would have been a fun experience for UMass Boston students to have together during this quarantine.
Some of the topics I asked Chris to rap about were: astrology, geminis, Danny Devito, One Direction, The Rock, Boston, short guys, getting denied on Tinder, being British in America, and more. With all of these random ideas coming together, Chris had done quite a few raps with various beats to whatever combination of words we had listed at that point. He never once messed up or hesitated; it was honestly super impressive and entertaining. One of the last raps he did was about every country he’s visited, or at least as many as he could remember. I’m not sure if he was able to travel so much due to his job as a comedian and rapper, or if he just grew up in the United Kingdom, where hopping borders to different countries wasn’t a big deal. Either way, he had TONS to list in that rap and that was probably my favorite rap he did because of how he transitioned between talking about different countries.
Chris had a moderator who would type back to me if I asked a question and Chris didn’t see it or to tell me when to give more suggestions for the rap. I’m assuming this was his tour manager or something of the sorts and they have shifted their roles due to the status of the world being put on hold because of coronavirus. I enjoyed watching Chris’s show and would definitely go see him if he ever came to Boston.