I was very excited for night two. A couple of my faves were performing, but. LISTEN. From the moment Essence announced that Ms. Mariah was performing, I. was. ready! I, out of almost everyone I know, was the only excited one to see Mimi perform. But, like I knew it, she came to play and she came to slay nothing but the hits!
NIGHT 2: Estelle, Jeremih, Common, Charlie Wilson, Mariah Carey
I walked in on the end of Estelle. I was super excited to hear Jeremih sing “Oui,” but once he started performing, I didn’t realize how many of his songs I actually like. Like, there’s a lot of them. NOLA’s own New Breed Brass Band performed alongside Common. Soul singer Bilal acted as one of his backup singers, then took the stage and performed a mini-snippet of Prince’s “Nikki” It wasn’t as intense as his BET tribute performance, but it was still everything. Uncle Charlie came to pordy, as always. Although, I’ve literally witnessed the train take off for the past three years, and he didn’t perform at Jazz Fest this year, I will say that it felt like I hadn’t seen his performance in a while. Mariah. came. to. slay. And she succeeded. She gave me every reason to be excited, to know every lyric, every ad-lib, every dance move. She was and will forever be everything. I was very surprised to see how quickly the dome filled up for her. And she rocked it, especially when she pulled a random onstage to give him a little tease.
Up next: Night Three.