Dominique Young Unique moves bodies

While Dominique Young Unique might not live up to the last third of her stage name, the first two thirds seem to be pretty accurate.  She is named Dominique and she is young, only 19 years old, as far as this reporter can discern. The Tampa, Fl. rapper played a show last Friday night in McCullough Social Space, sponsored by Wonnacott Commons. Her best known song “Show My Ass”  has been well-received by music publications such as Pitchfork, and she has a new mixtape out called Domination.  The relatively brief show was enjoyed by a sizeable audience who took advantage of the rhythm and open space to dance with wild abandon.  On the final song, several enthusiastic individuals even hopped up on stage to join her in her gyrations.  Student energy was high and people were having fun, so if one considers that the most important goal of a Middlebury concert, then it was achieved.

On the other hand, music and performance quality were lacking. Young’s background tracks seemed to be prerecorded and her accompanying DJ didn’t seem to play any active role in the performance.  As for her lyrics, they had a very small vocabulary range and explored themes that didn’t travel much farther than her derriere.  She also seemed to have a pretty scant arsenal of actual songs.  Luckily, we Middlebury students often revel in music that is so appalling that it becomes great, and though she may lack genuine talent, she still brought liveliness to a dance floor of cabin-fevered Vermonters.

Though Dominique and her performance were not necessarily unique, maybe she will be able to slide into the industry’s “Top 40 Hits” genre with the rest of the groups who willingly bank on cliché lyrics and catchy beats — something I must admit does have a place on dance party playlists everywhere.  Audience response was undoubtedly positive, though irony and inebriation may have had something to do with it.  A fan who went up on stage at the end, overjoyed by her moment above the crowd, shouted that it was the best concert she had ever been to at Middlebury as she stumbled out the door. The best thing was Dominique’s shout-out to all of us via Twitter: omg loving vermont so snowey here gotta love the fans they the best so dancy at young unique concert they showed me so much love mauh!

“It was a really good turnout for an MCAB event of that scale,” said Peter Kaplan ’12.5, who organized the event. “It was great to see how we came out for it and how she responded to us. The concert was essentially made by the crowd energy.”