A few weeks ago, I attended the livestream of Khalid’s virtual concert which took place on iHeartRadio’s Youtube channel. While this event was advertised to be an hour and a half, in reality, the event itself only lasted for around forty-five minutes and with only ten minutes of Khalid actually performing.
In terms of the interaction aspect of this event, the majority of this event consisted of interviews between the host, DJ Envy, and other people such as the CEO of McDonalds who was the sponsor of this event, along with the beneficiaries of this event. The interviews featured artists such as Saweetie, Lil Baby, and Big Sean who discussed how they started their careers through trial and tribulations as well as the latest updates of their music. While during the event there was a live chat, it doesn’t allow the audience to directly interact with the artists that were being interviewed. The audiences could not ask questions of their own and the artists being interviewed couldn’t see the audiences reactions throughout the event. It made it feel like the questions were asked purposely in order to help with the event and that the artists were told about what the questions were and were also told to prepare answers prior to the event. This made the interview portion of the event (which again, took up the majority of the event time) seem very planned and not candid.
Similar to the interaction between the audience and other artists being interviewed, the live chat box did not allow the audience to directly interact with Khalid and it only allowed fans to interact with each other through the forms of text. Despite this, the interactions between the fans themselves weren’t typical compared to that of a liver in person event. During the interview portion of this event, the majority of the comments that came from the text box were of audiences complaining and asking when Khalid is going to start performing. During the performance, the majority of the comments were of fans “hyping” up the performance in a series of complements and emojis. In addition, during the performance, while Khalid did address the viewers, he didn’t directly look at the camera and it was almost as if he was talking to someone else. It seemed to me that Khalid performed as if there were actual audiences in person because he would walk around the stage and I personally don’t think such actions are necessary during a virtual performance. But because of such, he made it felt more like an in person concert where the artist would walk around the stage in order to interact with the fans. While this did not completely replace the artist and fan interaction of a performance, it definitely did help to mimic that feeling.
In terms of the musical aspect of this event, there was a live band and it looked like it took place at an actual concert hall or stadium which made the way the sound travels very similar to as it actually took place in person. In addition, Khalid performed “Talk”, “Better”, “Location” and “OTW” which were all my favorite songs from him and I really appreciated that. In terms of the conduct, there is an automated chat moderator. While I’m not sure what it moderates, but I would assume that it filters out profanity or any inappropriate commentaries. While the live chat option is available for fans to interact with each other, there were a few instances where the viewers actually had a conversation with each other as the comments refreshed really fast and it was hard to keep track of the comments.
The main priority of this event was to celebrate HBCU (historically Black colleges and universities) along with their alumni’s achievements. It partners with McDonalds and Black & Positively Golden which is a movement that aims to uplift Black communities and help individuals and organizations take action to revive, protect and strengthen Black culture. It brings together students and alumni from HBCU along with their favorite artists and influencers in order to celebrate and raise awareness about the cause.
In terms of my personal experience, the music, like I said, featured a live band but it also sounded like there were pre-recorded samples and background vocals being used. The stage looked like a traditional stage with lighting that changed throughout the performance. The only negative about this event I would say is that the interview and talking portion was a long longer than the actual performance. However, because the purpose of this event isn’t purely to entertain, it makes sense for this event to be structured in this way as the intent wasn’t to entertain people but rather to garner attention to a specific cause. This event contributed to a cultural and social impact and it is all thanks to Khalid’s performance as well as those students and alumni from HBCU that were interviewed.
