Mick Jenkins brought his “Thank You for Waiting” tour to a sold-out Racket on Friday night.
The tour celebrates the release of Mick Jenkins’ 2023 release The Patience, as well as the ten-year anniversary of The Water[s], his 2014 breakout mixtape. “Thank You for Waiting” marks the Chicago rapper’s first tour in four years, since his 2020 tour was cut short by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The North America and Europe spanning tour, which is closing in on its halfway point, is being opened by TOBi, the Nigerian-born Canadian singer/rapper whose Elements Vol. 1 was shortlisted for the 2021 Polaris Music Prize in his home country.
Throughout the show, Jenkins’ eyes were largely set on celebrating ten years of The Water[s]. Verbally reminiscing the last decade of his career at various points, the focus may explain the crowd of young millennials that could have easily been in high schooler or older during The Water’s prominence. The older crowd also contributed to the relatively docile crowd, though it could also be explained by the jazz club atmosphere Jenkins cultivated through his band, which featured DJ Greensllime and Noah Hyppolite on the drums.
Hyppolite, in particular, contributed much to the tactility of Mick Jenkins’ performance. The dry snares paired perfectly with Mick Jenkins’ signature staccato attack, honing the whole performance with a studio precision. Jenkins himself delivered an excellent performance, skipping not a bar nor a beat throughout his time on stage. My oft complaints of poor sound at rap shows, especially those featuring live instruments, don’t apply here, thanks to Racket’s intimate space and quality sound design.
The setlist largely veered between tracks from The Patience and The Water, two projects that are heavily indebted to collaborators. As a result, many of the songs on the set felt incomplete, or at least a little thin. The set was also relatively short, presumably thanks to Racket’s early curfew, with nineteen songs performed over the course of an hour. The performance subsequently felt much smaller than it otherwise would have, but regardless of minutiae, Mick Jenkins masterfully delivered a performance that flaunted his excellent pen and musicianship.
