The crowd was mum during the house DJ set that would lead into Ugly God gracing the stage, ascending from the watery heights in which he himself has created.  Jay Z records circa 1995 couldn’t move any of the Ugly God’s disciples who were adorned with “Hey Arnold” and “Thrasher” t-shirts.  As the music lowered and the lights dimmed a buzz had generated, starting from the front of the stage and rapidly made its way into the bowels and wings of the venue: “THANKS UGLY GOD!” was the chant.  The calling, no, the prayer that would summon one raps fastest growing and most popular acts we have today.

Out he came, with young ladies and older men alike, from every human variety, arms raised and voices turned up clamoring for the internet’s most popular rapper to open his set.  He started with a few of his relatively unknown songs which did a fine job of warming up the crowd.  There was no question about the level of hype-ness as the Ugly God would invariably question the crowd “Are y’all ready to turn up!?” while he and his on-stage water gang threw water bottles and splashed the party-goers with the freshest, high alkaline, mineral water Los Angeles has to offer.  After songs “Bitch”, “Beat My Meat” and “Fuck Donald Trump” swept through the air, splashing our ears and minds with feel good music, there was but one record left to play that all of us had come to see, with so much water from the Ugly God it would float the Ugly Ark with fans walking two by two through the doors to safety.

“WATER! WATER! WATER!” filled the sold out venue.  It was as if the 150 million streams the song has garnered culminated right then and there.  With an impressive 9 consecutive weeks on Billboard’s Hot 100, and 26 million streams on YouTube, Ugly God is poised to have a monster year in 2017.  Much can be attributed to his success.  His unique style and unforgiving honesty about himself combined with his diverse and creative prowess, Ugly God is a name we will be hearing more and more of, for quite some time. THANKS UGLY GOD!