Dom Kennedy at the Fillmore in Silver Spring, MD 1/24/14

It wasn’t the first time that Dom Kennedy performed in the DC area. Being an independent artist somewhat reliant on touring, it also very likely will not be the last.

Yet there was a keenly palpable feeling of distinction with Kennedy at the Fillmore in Silver Spring this past Friday, January 24^th. The combined emotion and symbology behind the Los Angeles rapper as he echoed lines from the introduction of his latest project and current tours’ namesake, Get Home Safely, helped set him apart as an exemplification of hip-hop culture.

“You won’t see this on ESPN, but this shit is finna jam all across the land/ I made it out the jungle now I’m up in Japan” is sandwiched in the second verse of “Letz Be Friends” though Dom’s articulation of this line at a venue quite literally across the country from his neighborhood of Leimert Park provided plenty of definition.

The sports metaphor resonates through Kennedy’s music but offers particularly strong context here. Dom is one of the few truly successful rap artists without major label support. Dom is still balling, just on a different channel. He’s still living off of performing his unique brand of California positivity, packing venues such as the Fillmore in the process.

Opting to come out to one of the singles off the album, “Dominic” rather than the aforementioned intro, as Kennedy cycled through Get Home Safely, the actualization occurring was apparent. In  “All Girl Crazy,” performed fifth, Kennedy smoothly opens the second verse with “The DC show/It goes well/We on the bus/no hotel.” In that moment it almost felt as if he foresaw this show and this evening when first penning these lyrics.

Irrespective of the rapper’s exact itinerary (who followed the show on the 24^th with a performance the next evening in Boston, so it’s feasible) it demonstrates a moment where Dom can reasonably expect a certain degree of success in DC, the market most geographically opposite his own.

Through popularity gained devoid of a label advertising or promo budget, Kennedy has reached a point with this album and tour where his success as an individual and an artist is assured. While the preceding Yellow Album and Yellow Album World Tour represent his first experience with this degree of fame, the confidence and perspective behind Get Home Safely demonstrate progression. Perhaps best orated by Kennedy himself on “17”

“I used to dream one day that I would shop in Rome

That aint the life for me nigga, the block is home

Now I’m back with my people and I’m never leavin

Don’t do it for yourself kid it’s better reasons”

Dom Kennedy’s career trajectory and catalogue have always been heavily saturated by the existing Los Angeles hip-hop culture, though he has continuously strived to incorporate his own individuality. This album represents the point where he has been successful enough to realize many of the greatest of his early ambitions, and has a renewed sense of appreciation for his environment. Not that a Kennedy track exists without West Coast influence as it is, for a devoted independent artist, this moment is hard to overstate.

As the show continued and the haze of fog and kush smoke grew, Kennedy gave a poignant introduction to “Black Bentleys” a song that discusses how Dom first comprehended the hip-hop world and his progression through it, and closes with several quotables, few more relevant than “The model of success and the definition of failure.”

That paradoxical phrase is a reference to Dom’s adherence to the organic creative process, and simply put, keeping it real and doing it for the love. Distribution and longevity come at much higher prices for an artist in Kennedy’s position. Yet the result is retainment of ownership and the direction of the culture he is personifying. That statement acknowledges the determination necessary to thrive off of strictly original content, while alluding to the artistic process necessary to create such content.

Dom has done just that, and on his confident opening verse to “If It Don’t Make Money”, which came two tracks after “Black Bentleys,”he compounded this model of success with “If you don’t know a thing about me know I’m takin risks/ Started recording in ’06 now it’s making sense.”

If the other indicators weren’t evident enough, that lyric leaves little doubt that Kennedy’s assured, confident and extremely well received presence on the Silver Spring stage that evening was the result of a long, arduous process. A process that came to treat the patrons of the Fillmore to an incredibly rare and refined musical product on this Friday evening.

The only two tracks from GHS that were left untouched on stage were the two lacking traditional verses and therefore a normal performance vibe, “An Intermission for Watts” and “Tryna Find My Way.” Filling their place were two Yellow Album hits, “5.0 / Conversations” and “Girls on Stage”, along with the opening verse to “So Elastic.” The crowd’s participation grew with “My Type of Party” where Dom gave up most of the choruses to a clearly appreciative crowd who gave him little choice.

The final supplement was provided by Casey Veggies, another Los Angeles artist whose career is following a similar upwards trajectory at the moment, performed earlier in the evening at a small D.C. venue. Knowledge of this prior to the concert in conjunction with an awareness of where their two catalogues coincided made it somewhat obvious to this writer, but Veggies unannounced cameo on stage for the 2011 hit “C.D.C” only magnified the energy.

It would have been too easy for Dom to close with “Pleeze”, the chorus of which bangs “please make it home safe”—an ironic double entendre that without Nipsey Hussle supplying the second verse in person would have felt hollow. Kennedy opted to close with “The 5 Year Theory”, which on the album opens with a voracious Kennedy verse before three minutes of silence preclude a series of shoutouts.

In concert Dom Kennedy closed with just the verse, rapped a capella with the crowd behind every line. It was captivating and a final testament to the hardened and procedural nature of the success being celebrated amongst a building of fans.

An earlier mixtape title joked that Dom was “the best Kennedy after Bobby.” While there’s obviously no relation, Dom Kennedy is certainly creating a new American model of success in the music industry.

Below is Kennedy crouched in the center, Casey Veggies and producer Ty $ to the left, producer DJ Drew Byrd on the boards, a member of Dom's security contingent to his right, and opening act Skeme just out of the picture on the right.

Photos by Glen Sousa