“All work and no play makes Jack (or, in this case, Vybe) a dull boy” – that’s what the old folks say, right? Well Lord knows I’ve been working my ass off in Toronto for the last few weeks, so it was really fitting that I got to finally enjoy some much needed R&R (“Rest & Relaxation”) on Saturday night. I have to say, it ROCKS to have management that understands how to balance relaxation and motivation perfectly. To my manager Joanne (AKA “The Best Manager In The World”) – I gotta say THANKS A MILLION for carrying me to my first official Canadian live concert: Jay-Z (along with Wale and N.E.R.D) live at the Air Canada Centre (Toronto)!!!

The show was totally AMAZING (in true Jigga style), and, it felt like it was tailor-made for me personally, as the Universe somehow willed Jay to keep speaking on Positivity, Ambition and Persistence all night. Time and time again, he kept repeating his mantra for the night: “It doesn’t matter where you come from, If you got a dream – DON’T LET NOBODY BLOCK YOUR DREAM!”

Powerful words for a lil’ island boy with big dreams… ;-)

Earlier before Jay-Z took the stage, N.E.R.D. opened the show and similar sentiments were put forward by (Super-Producer and solo Hip Hop star) Pharrell Williams (of The Neptunes) as well when he introduced Toronto to N.E.R.D.’s newest member – an amazing female singer named Rhea who sent the place NUTS when she revealed that she hailed from Ajax, Ontario in Canada. Later on, I found out that Rhea -in addition to being Canadian – is also of Guyanese descent.

Here’s a quick clip of Pharrell doing his thing onstage with N.E.R.D. – remember to keep your eyes and ears peeled for the TWO DRUMMERS wilding out doing a solo (or maybe that should be a “duo”?) in the middle of the clip – pure MADNESS!!!

Pharrell Williams & N.E.R.D. – Live at Air Canada Centre, TORONTO

from Mista Vybe on Vimeo.

Later on, Jigga himself had the crowd eating out of his hands, leaping from song to song effortlessly and igniting the Air Canada Centre as only Jigga can. For those of you who weren’t fortunate enough to be there, here’s a clip I put together of all the fun you missed when Jay-Z hit the stage in T.O.!

JAY-Z – Live at Air Canada Centre in TORONTO

from Mista Vybe on Vimeo.

Then – as if all that Positive Energy from Pharrell and Jay-Z didn’t hit me hard enough – Jigga topped it all off with the night’s biggest moment. After bringing Pharrell back out to join him in a rousing peformance of “So Ambitious” (one of my favourite songs from “The Blueprint 3″), Jay-Z welcomed Toronto’s own Hip Hop sensation Drake onstage and went line for line with him as Drake performed the smash single “Successful”, which sent the whole place completely INSANE as you can see in this clip (via Peace Magazine).

All in all, that night was one of the most fun and most INSPIRING nights I’ve had in a long time. Yayyyyy for my first real concert experience (as a fan anyway) in Toronto!

Oh – and here’s a quick shout out to all my Toronto Twitter peeps that I met at the show as well! Big up emti, HerLilBlackBook (AKA hl_bb), toflo and Heyhomee! Big ups to my extended Toronto family Carey and Janelle too – nice seeing you girls at the show as well. :-)

Finally – EXTRA SPECIAL thanks to Sandhya from the MistaVybeWorld Team for recording all the footage for the video clips!

This is a very inspired and even more motivated Mista Vybe saying to you – I’m outtttttt!!!

Posted by: Mista Vybe at 2:30 am | Filed under: Travel and Places |

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Tags: 2009, Jay-Z, Live, Memphis Bleek, Mista Vybe, N.E.R.D., Pharrell Williams, Toronto