Anderson .Paak is a Californian to the core. Born in the city of Oxnard, he’s made Golden State locations the titles of all his albums. Over the span of six months, Paak has released two new discs – one named for his hometown surfacing in November 2018, and a second, Ventura (named for the county that contains Oxnard) in April 2019.
Featuring a sizable list of production credits including hip-hop legend Dr. Dre, Paak is in his songwriting prime at the moment, with these latest two records bolstering an already-impressive discography featuring his inimitable blend of R&B, hip-hop, and funk.
Filling the Mohegan Sun Arena in the heart of Connecticut, Paak’s stage presence is quite literally massive, with a large platform built atop the stage proper containing an elevator that houses Paak himself and his drum kit, and he rises out of that cloister to begin the night. He alternates often, sometimes mid-song, between playing drums and hamming it up at the front of the stage, but even high above the stage atop his drummer’s throne, Paak is a stereotypically Californian beam of light.
He’s got his trademark oversize bejeweled shades and a permanent, blinding-white smile, which prompted Paak to name his worldwide trek the “Best Teef in the Game Tour” – though that title is comically contested by notable music reviewer Anthony Fantano.
In any case, it’s hard to think of a more vibrant performer, both in terms of body language and dress, with Paak sneaking in a wardrobe change in the middle of the night that found him in even more colorful garb; though he always looks a bit like he’s ready for one of those California beaches. He brings some of that Cali heat to the still-intermittently-cold northeast in the form of pyrotechnics that wash over the whole front of the venue during the first few songs, all backed by a series of projection screens three stories high, broadcasting homespun graphics as colorful as Paak’s personality.
Paak descends from his kit early on in the night to perform ‘Come Down’, one of the all-time best songs in his discography, from 2016’s Malibu. Paak’s live performance leans heavily on the jazzy stylings of the Free Nationals, a 7-piece ensemble including a second drummer and two backup singers, all of whom add new depth to every arrangement. With such an able band, Paak is able to flexibly move between genres, and ‘Come Down’ sees him dabble across several with its infectious groove and staccato hook.
Paak gets into the swing of things as himself, his arms shifting side-to-side, and posing dramatically with his mic stand. Not content to simply work the stage, he climbs the venue’s barrier into the crowd during Ventura’s ‘Reachin’ 2 Much’, circumnavigating the whole of the arena floor while narrating the song’s tale of a relationship that’s moving too fast.
Next up, Paak headed behind the stage, allowing the Free Nationals to debut one of their new songs, a track called ‘Beauty & Essex’ that features contributions from Daniel Caesar and Unknown Mortal Orchestra. It’s a beautiful and ethereal soul jam and serves as both a mid-set palate cleanser and a treat for die-hard fans of the band. Drummer Callum Connor takes over Paak’s kingly kit for the song, and later keyboardist Ron “Tnava” Avant takes over vocal duties in an interlude, using a Peter Frampton-style talk box for a medley of classic covers including Mystikal’s ‘Shake Ya Ass’.
Throughout the night, Paak played from his three most recent albums often, be it the soulful, Smokey Robinson-featuring ‘Make It Better’ off of Ventura, or Oxnard highlight ‘Trippy’, the latter of which finds the Free Nationals’ trumpet player using a series of effects to make his instrument sound like trumpet, Jethro Tull-style flute, and more all at once. Paak also busts out ‘Suede’ from his other project, NxWorries (pronounced “no worries”), a fan favorite (just see the Tiny Desk Concert where it draws multiple requests) featuring a blown-out yet patient funk beat and some influence drawn from the odd syncopation of trip-hop.
“Weirdos make some noise! Thank you for being strange, I got your back!” That’s what Paak calls out the crowd towards the end of the night, just before the pyrotechnics return for ‘Bubblin’’, which boasts an unhinged polyrhythmic transition when Paak returns to the kit for set-ender ‘Milk n’ Honey’. Paak isn’t just the “best teef in the game”; he’s a real percussion virtuoso, able to play understated or take over the spotlight, whatever the scene demands, and it’s definitely the latter in the case of ‘Milk n’ Honey’.
Navigating his body of work, which is ripe with features from other artists not on tour with the band, Paak is particularly skilled at blending songs together in smooth transitions from one height to the next, and such is the case for the first two songs of the encore, as ‘Am I Wrong’ fades into the pulsating club beat of ‘Lite Weight’. White confetti rains down from the ceiling over the audience in a reflective shower, and each hit Paak makes on his drum kit sends an avalanche of paper exploding from his snare, tom, and other drums.
The artist had one more surprise to end the night: a performance of Mac Miller’s track ‘Dang!’, which saw Paak and Miller collaborate on a funky jam before the Miller’s untimely death in late 2018. It’s a bittersweet moment, with Mac’s vocals playing from the house speakers between Paak’s choruses, which, in tragic prescience, found him crooning “I can’t keep on losing you” and “gone too soon”. Paak leads the whole of the arena in a chant of “Mac! Mac! Mac!” and a trumpet solo carries them all into the night, Paak parting with the words: “I love you Connecticut!” And of course, as you might expect from the Best Teef in the Game – he’s smiling to the very last.
Photos and review by Collin Heroux
