Concerts lacking variety

One of the best school year celebrations is on its way-Homecoming. Unfortunately I am one of the few people not excited to see T.I., Lil Wayne, Trick Daddy or Plies for the umpteenth time. In my three years at Florida A&M University, I have seen the same kind of artist at every concert and I am so over them. Every year I receive messages from a facebook group asking what type of artists I would like to see come for Homecoming, and each year I’m disappointed when I see the same type of acts. I’m sure top acts like Kanye West, Jay Z, Common or Beyonce are probably pretty expensive. But I would rather pay money to see one of them for the full three hours than four others I kind of like.

The powers that be would probably bring up money as a motivating factor. From what I have heard, student tickets only represent a small margin of the ticket sales for the concert and the rest comes from members of the community.

But how do we really know that students only bought student tickets? How do we know that students didn’t buy regular tickets once student tickets ran out?

We don’t, which means there is a bit of room for error in the numbers.

Another point is, these are the artists that student leaders believe will sell out the concert and generate a profit. For some reason committee members don’t think artists like Jill Scott, Lupe Fiasco or Erykah Badu will fill seats in the Leon County Civic Center.

But how would they know if it’s never happened? I think if we had a lineup like that we’d have half of the Seminoles filling up our concert. But we aren’t given a chance to experience variation because we keep getting the same kind of southern rappers every year and a wildcard artist like Musiq Soulchild or Kelis.

And this has nothing to do with just bringing artists from the South, or the North. But how many times can you hear the same type of music and not grow weary?

This is the same music played at the club, on the radio and at every Set Friday. FAMU needs to change it up!

I’m sure there a lot of procedures that average students like me are unaware of.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be involved in the decision.

Why can’t we have a more hands on decision making process that doesn’t exclude student opinions in the end? Why not have focus groups or campus polls to help decide the lineup?

I pay tuition and student fees every year. And every year I have contributed toward funding to help bring artists that I don’t even really like, which is quite unfair.

Although this may seem a bit selfish, I don’t pay my fees so the community can enjoy themselves at my Homecoming Concert. Aside for the obvious reasons, I pay them so that chosen student leaders can distribute the money as they feel necessary in order to effectively support what the student body wants.

This is my plea for something different! For once can we please not have another year of Ozone Award nominees for the Homecoming Concert?

Bring us something that conveys the range of students we have here and that everyone can appreciate.

Yewande Addie is a senior newspaper journalism student from Atlanta. She can be reached at famuanopinions@gmail.com