'Woo Hah!!': Busta Rhymes to play Relays

The hip-hop artist will perform over the weekend of the annual Penn Relays track and field meet. The whole entire University is about to get "dangerous," as Busta Rhymes will headline the fourth annual Penn Relays concert April 25. Though the Social Planning and Events Committee has been criticized recently for its selection of four relatively small acts to play the annual Spring Fling concert, it signed hip-hop artist Rhymes -- a significantly better-known performer -- to play the concert in Annenberg's Zellerbach Theatre the weekend after Fling. Members of SPEC to Unite Racial Minorities -- the SPEC subsidiary organizing the concert -- confirmed last night that the Brooklyn-born and Long Island-reared rap artist would be bringing his explosive musical talents to Penn. "He's a very good live performer," SPECTRUM co-director and Wharton senior Titania Richard said. "I think that the Penn students will be very pleased." First held in 1995, the Penn Relays concert -- held in honor of the international track and field event at Franklin Field -- has consistently attracted some of the top names in hip-hop and rap, including Method Man, the Fugees, Redman and KRS-One. The charismatic Rhymes first came to prominence in 1990 as part of the influential Leaders of the New School. He gained mass appeal when he went solo in 1996 with the platinum The Coming, which featured the hit single "Woo Hah!! (Got You All In Check)." He has also found commercial and critical success with his most recent offering, When Disaster Strikes. "Dangerous," a single from the album, was recently in Billboard's top 10. Rhymes is also no stranger to controversy. His parent label, Warner Music, pulled the single "It's All Good" from the U.S. version of When Disaster Strikes for its highly suggestive sexual lyrics. The song was available on the European release of the album. At the time, Rhymes suggested that Warner was torn between "representing hip-hop on the one side and Walt Disney on the other." The future of the Penn Relays concert was in doubt last year when Irvine Auditorium -- the 1,800-seat venue where SPECTRUM has staged the performance for the past three years -- began undergoing renovations as part of the $69 million Perelman Quadrangle project. Zellerbach, the new site for the concert, has a seating capacity of only 900. With Irvine's closing, it has hosted a number of high-profile events in the past year, including speeches by Hillary Clinton and James Earl Jones and performances by the University Wind Ensemble and the cast of Sesame Street. By contrast, the Spring Fling concert on Hill Field, scheduled for April 17, has a capacity of 8,000 and has in years past sold about 4,000 tickets. Richard expressed disappointment at the fact that Irvine's closing will cause the concert to "lose about a thousand seats." This year's Fling lineup -- headlined by acid jazz tenor saxophonist Maceo Parker -- has been criticized by many Penn students for failing to attract a top-name band. In recent years, acts such as the Violent Femmes, Cypress Hill and George Clinton and the P-Funk All Stars have headlined Fling. Richard said the group is trying to turn the Relays concert into a tradition similar to Fling. "We want to have the same respect as Fling but we are not trying to outdo them," Co-Director Richard Hooper said. Other acts for the concert, which usually consists of several smaller bands in addition to the headliner, will be announced within the next week or so, Richard said. Ticket prices and the date they will go on sale were not immediately available.