Lil Wayne and crew shows the seamier side

Walking out of the Verizon Wireless Virginia Beach Amphitheater after the Lil Wayne concert Sunday night, I felt afraid. Not because this was a rap concert and, according to stereotype, I was certain to be robbed or shot; on the contrary, the crowd of ethnically diverse American consumers whose median age seemed to be about 21 were not threatening in the least.

But I left afraid, and a bit saddened, too, because so little seems to have changed in post-millennial hip-hop culture, even with a black family in the White House. And the more I thought about it, I remained fearful that if the people who performed Sunday – with the exception of Wayne – are the heroes of this new generation, then we are all hopelessly screwed.

This fear began to take hold after short sets by the performers Jeremih and Pleasure P, both young men who more or less sing about sex. And that’s OK. That’s what R&B singers do.

Jeremih sings the confounding summer hit “Birthday Sex” (which fails to explain why sex on this day differs from sex on, say, Boxing Day or one’s anniversary), and P sings “Boyfriend #2,” which paints him as the guy a girl calls when Boyfriend #1 is unable or unwilling to perform boyfriend duties.

These guys were decent, if unremarkable, and more or less seemed like the kind of guys upon which a father would cast a dubious glance. But if they elicited indifference, the next performer inspired dismay.

Soulja Boy Tell ’Em bounced onto the stage, as if atop a pogo stick, with four or five “hype men” doing exactly the same. They yelled unintelligibly, chains swinging. Gunshots (from the DJ) trumpeted his arrival. We were asked, for the first of several times in the night, to throw our mother-you-know-what hands up, and Soulja Boy did his song “Crank That.”

Watching this young man, with his pants defying gravity around his thighs and tattoos from his neck to torso, I felt somehow violated. His songs – including “Yahh!” – are not only vulgar and bereft of reason or, ironically, rhyme, they impart the idea that money and sex matter most. I’m all for mindless fun, but his brand of boastful aggression – this “I’ve got more than you, so you don’t matter” mantra – didn’t make me feel good about myself. It’s not escapist. It’s anti-social.

“Free T.I.,” he said, referring to the rapper who’s serving a year in an Arkansas federal prison on gun charges. “Free Gucci Mane,” he said, referring to another rap star in jail earlier this year, and I recoiled wondering how the famed “Free Huey” campaign had become so warped. Huey Newton, a Black Panther leader who was sent to prison in California for manslaughter in 1968, at least committed illegal, anti-social acts in the name of social change.

To be fair, Soulja Boy has more hit songs, including “Kiss Me Thru the Phone” and “Donk,” than I remembered, and he was entertaining. But car accidents are entertaining; that doesn’t make them appropriate forms of enjoyment for people with feelings, compassion and intellect.

I wondered how or why it was that, in the Obama age, this young man and so many of his fans worship degenerate behavior and thugs.

And then Young Jeezy – whose upcoming album will be his third with “Thug” in the title – came out. He’s the guy whose “I Got That Snow, Man” T-shirts were banned in schools in 2005 because, of course, snow in this context does not mean frosty precipitation. Jeezy’s set opened to a faux news report that Jeezy was wanted, and despite a $5 million bounty on his freedom, he remained hidden “with help from the streets.”

Wearing a black leather jacket, jeans and a white T-shirt, Jeezy proceeded to perform a slew of songs, including “Trap or Die” and “Umma Do Me,” which more or less repeat the same theme: Selling drugs is a viable career option.

Certainly we’re not all from Pollyanna upbringings, and there should be room for entertainers who are subversive and anti-establishment. But I worried while watching Jeezy pace back and forth and grab his crotch during his mostly dull performance – he did bring out a band later, all of whom were clad in black, with some wearing bandannas over their faces like bank robbers – that he’s reinforcing ideas so many people are working hard to overcome. I saw impressionable tweens, some even with their parents, throwing up faux gang signs. I felt sick.

How did we get here? And when and how does this change?

Wayne finished the show.

Listen, overtly sexual and violent can make for fabulous entertainment; these are integral themes in the work of Chris Rock and George Carlin and in “The Sopranos.” The thing is that they make crass clever, and that’s what’s interesting about Wayne. He’s no angel, but he challenges – he asks you to think and interpret. And, as he said after one of his first songs, “A Milli,” “I believe in God, and I wouldn’t be (anything) without you.”

Wayne is an enthralling performer, and his show was replete with videos and dancers who, of course, were scantily clad. They gyrated on a pole for “Lollipop,” and there was the requisite faux-arrest scene by stripper-looking cops during “Mrs. Officer.” Wayne brought out Birdman for “Always Strapped,” and there were lots of pyro and explosions throughout.

The thing with Wayne, though, is that there’s growth. There’s artistry. Even though he didn’t actually play the guitar – he was pretending to strum during a rendition of “Walk This Way” – Wayne is expanding: His band includes two electric guitars, and he’s incorporating more of a rock sound into his music.

Best, during his song “Tie My Hands,” the New Orleans native showed a montage of post-Katrina footage. One image included graffiti of a sign that said, “Make Levees Not War,” proof that Wayne is not just a one-dimensional caricature.

There’s balance, which is really all I and people like me are asking for. Unfortunately, there’s not enough in hip-hop, not even in this show, and that’s why I walked to my car worried about the future.

Malcolm Venable, (757) 446-2662, malcolm.venable@pilotonline.com