Neither Eminem Or Ludacris Impress Chicago Reviewer

Jim Derogatis of the Chicago Sun-Times reviewed the Anger Management Tour stop on Thursday night when it pulled into a sold-out Allstate Arena. Derogatis writes of the Eminem set, “The reliance on gimmickry at the expense of music is starting to seem very tired indeed, as when he urged the crowd to join in cursing out his mother and when he tortured Moby in effigy. Neither target seemed worthy of such bile, and to believe that any of this anger was real and not just part of the show is to think that pro wrestling isn’t carefully staged, either.” As for Ludacris, he writes, “The rapper interspersed his own jams with the standard, miserably cliched hip-hop routines of ‘wave your hands in the air’ and the ‘left side/right side’ battle. Combined with his frequent use of ‘bitches’ and ‘hoes,’ it all made him seem dumber and much less talented than he actually is, unless his recordings have been a fluke.”