Ab Soul Takes Florida By Storm

In a Friday night performance at Potbelly's, rapper Ab-Soul brought his performance skills to Tallahassee for the YMF tour April 28. Despite never quite reaching the popularity of friends and fellow Black Hippy and TDE members Schollboy Q and Kendrick Lamar, Ab-Soul has developed a pretty devout cult following of his own. That smaller following allows for more intimate personal settings like the one Friday at Potbelly's and such settings provide a chance to see an artist beyond their music

Ab-Soul performed the song "God's a Girl", one of the tracks from his latest album and upon completing the song, he stopped the show, and had a female audience member tie his shoe. This was apparently in an attempt to prove to the audience that "God was indeed a girl". This type of paradoxical thinking was prominent in his last album as well. Ab-Soul goes from speaking on feminism and women's rights in one track, to the stereotypical misogynistic and degrading lyrics that hip hop has been criticized for since its inception.

Throughout the album, Ab-Soul asks pointed questions about the treatment of women, and sings their praises and then on the next track he'll begin spitting out the typical objectification of women that he previously condemned. While it was undoubtedly an odd move, asking that young woman on stage to tie his shoe was emblematic of his entire album, he knows the words to say to promote gender equality but in practice he apparently still expects women in a subservient position.