Family Values: Puffy and Friends a Mixed Bag

Sean Combs, aka "Puff Daddy," has many talents, one of which is not performing. While Puffy--at 26, a successful CEO of Bad Boy Entertainment who has produced songs for a wide range of musicians from Sting to Mariah Carey--is arguably the most powerful force in the mainstream rap music industry nowadays, he lacks the ability to display his personal musical talents.

The Puff Daddy and the Family "No Way Out World Tour" made its way to the Worcester Centrum last week for two back-to-back shows. Puffy performed to sold out audiences along with Busta Rhymes, Lil' Kim, Mase and 112. During this concert, Puffy and his "family" clearly proved one thing: bad performances must be genetic.

The concert, which spanned roughly three hours consisted of interspersed performances between Puffy and the rest of his colleagues. Busta Rhymes took the stage before Puff Daddy to perform tracks from his latest album, When Disaster Strikes, as well as some of his classics from his previous album The Coming. The charismatic Rhymes, along with rapper The Last Boy Scout, gave a solid performance. His unique, free-flowing lyrical style and tremendous energy were well received by the concertgoers, who were out of their seats and dancing during his entire portion of the concert. During his signature song, "Woo Hah!! Got You All In Check," the capacity crowd repeatedly bounced up and down while singing along. The highlight of his act was the "Take off your clothes" dance during which he and the Last Boy Scout stripped down to boxer shorts and sang rap songs while half naked.

Puff Daddy's portion of the concert paled in comparison to Busta Rhymes' honest lyricism. Accompanied by his long-time sidekick, Mase, Puff spent more time changing costumes and addressing the audience than actually performing. He did a number of tributes to slain rapper Tupac Shakur during which he played Tupac songs and asked the audience to sing along with the records. There were also a number of tributes to Puffy's former rap partner, the Notorious BIG, who was shot to death last year.

Between spreading his messages of peace and love for the rap community, Puff Daddy performed some of his more popular songs, most of which are remakes of earlier '80s rap or rock songs, including "I'll Be Missing You," a remake of the Police's "Every Breath You Take," "Mo Money Mo Problems," "It's All About the Benjamins" and "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down." The audience itself, primarily teenagers dressed up as Puff Daddy look-alikes, only showed enthusiasm for Puff's sampled songs (the majority of his works) over his original ones from No Way Out.

A large problem with the performance was the poor acoustic quality of the sound system. The volume seemed to be turned up as loud as possible and sounded extremely muffled. Puffy's characteristically smooth deliveries were drowned out by the electric drum beats and prerecorded background tracks.

The staging of the concert also left a great deal to be desired. The stage consisted of a large staircase in the center, with two platforms on either side of the staircase: one platform for the DJ and another for a drummer. There were three circular video screens above the stage showing random computer animations of various geometrical objects which had no relevance to most of the songs. Only occasionally did the video screens display music videos that corresponded to the performed songs.

The most elaborate part of the set was a cylindrical platform which hung from supports above the stage and lifted Puff Daddy into the air carrying him over various portions of the audience. However, Puff Daddy used this contraption only briefly during the show when he had a contest to see which section of the Centrum was the loudest. For nearly 15 minutes Puffy hovered above the crowd asking fans stage left, center and right to scream as loud as they could. Having declared that the audience was the loudest he had ever seen, Puff Daddy had all of his fans do the wave around the auditorium. Another large portion of the show was taken up by an obviously staged, sexually explicit argument between Lil' Kim and Puff Daddy concerning oral sex.

Lil' Kim's musical performance lacked any sort of talent. For half an hour she performed on stage wearing a small bikini bottom and top along with a tiny fur coat. This revealing clothing begged the question why the adjective "Lil'" is actually used in her name. Alternating between a long and short blond hair wig, she attempted to thrill the audiences. Once again, the problems with the sound system made it impossible to understand any of her lyrics and gave concertgoers more a headache than anything else.

The strongest performers of the night were 112, a southern R&B quartet with a mellow yet smooth sound, similar to that of Boyz II Men or Jodeci. Their harmonious singing left concertgoers wanting to hear more. The performance of their hit song "Cupid," complete with a shirtless group member playing the guitar, was the best song of the night--and the only one which displayed any significant amount of musical talent.

Puff Daddy's ability as a record company CEO to recognize talent was evident at the concert as groups, like 112, on the Bad Boy record label, gave top-notch performances. However, his own abilities as a performer are much less obvious. While his messages of peace and race relations add to the Daddy's overall positive image, the "No Way Out World Tour" (which actually only appears in U.S. cities) demonstrated that Puff Daddy's talents are best applied off-stage.