Ain’t a Damn Thing Changed

David Banner did the right thing last night. With rumbling echoes of “UGK for life!” barely brought to a simmer and Bun B just off stage, the night’s headliner emerged unannounced and called Bun back front-and-center.

“Ain’t no way I’m supposed to be going on after Bun B,” Banner shouted into his microphone before a crowd whose celebratory howls signaled a mutual respect for the Port Arthur icon. “This is a motherfucking legend! This is Bun B!”

It’s no wonder why the young ones in the game today call Bun “Uncle.” He takes the respect and dishes it right back out to the most deserving. “It’s an honor and a privilege to hand this stage over to David Banner,” replied the OG, and not a soul in the Austin Music Hall could object. An endorsement from Bun B in Texas is as good as gold.

Banner electrified AMH straight from the start. By the time he’d gotten to his cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” one he plays “for the white folks,” the Mississippi man had already engaged in crowd surfing, cartwheeled into a flip, ripped off his shirt and put on his hype man’s, and took pictures of himself with the crowd as his background.

He left the stage altogether when “9mm” broke, sprinting for the stairs leading to the balcony and rapping the first verse while balance-beaming his way along the banister. With the crowd in complete disarray, mystified by what they were witness to, Banner inched himself off the ledge and dropped a story back to ground level.

Banner ranted on diabetes, church, white people's role in hip-hop, higher spirits, Magic Johnson, Barack Obama, weed, pacifism, guitar, and, most pointedly, UGK. Banner learned his tricks bumping Too Hard to Swallow in his Southern University dorm room. It’s hard to imagine what it must have felt like for him to succeed an idol like Bun B.