Surprise Birthday Party For Nas

Last Wednesday I was invited to a surprise birthday party for Nas. The shindig went down at Canal Room and was put together by Kelis. The only thing I knew ahead of time was that Slick Rick was going to perform, Kanye and Diddy were supposed to be there and there was free booze. Also, the theme was "old school," which of course I had no clothing for. So I threw on my Run DMC shirt and waited for my ride.

You see, I invited one of my old friends from Jersey because I thought he would be into it. Knowing his tendency to be late I told him that this was the big time and he couldn't fuck around. Of course, the asshole was late - about 40 minutes late to be exact. No worries though, Nas ended up being late too so it was all good.

We got to Canal Room right around 9:30PM or so. We stood outside for about five minutes waiting to get in. In front of us was a guy that was about 6'10" or so. I jokingly said "what team do you think that guy plays for?" According to some post event coverage I read he actually does play for a team. Not surprising, I suppose.

After a brief wait we got our VIP stamp and headed inside. As soon as we walked in I noticed a VH1 camera crew interviewing someone. I'm not sure who it was but either way that's not a sight I'm used to, not at the parties I frequent. Like always we headed straight to the bar and got ourselves some free drinks. Then we decided to stroll the perimeter and see who was there we might recognize.

As soon as we entered the VIP area we noticed DMC standing against the wall. Early on he was pretty much the only familiar face - well, at least the only one I could put a name to. It was incredibly crowded upstairs and I was getting hot so I headed back down to the bar. I hung out there with some friends for awhile and then I noticed ?uestlove stroll by.

About ten minutes later a huge entourage bursts through the door. It was a big train of dudes pushing through the crowd obviously protecting someone in the middle. There were cameras following him and flashes everywhere. Was this the man of the hour? Then the train stopped for a quick interview with this guest. When it stopped and the entourage cleared it was easy to see who this mystery man was...Nick Cannon. What? Are you serious? All that for Nick fucking Cannon?

It was a ridiculous scene and really disgusted me. I mean here you have ?uestlove and DMC and Kanye (did I mention Kanye was there?) and this little shit is trying to steal the show. Not only that but for his "old school" outfit he dressed up like DMC. Dude, come on, show some fucking respect. You could have walked in like a normal person like every other celeb did that night but no, you gotta show boat. Sorry for the rant but that shit was fucked up.

Back to Kanye: I didn't see him all night but my friends did. Bronques got a shot of him so he was definitely there. The funny thing about that was when I saw my friends the first thing they said about Kanye was, "He's really short." Maybe that's how he snuck in without anyone noticing.

At some point shortly after the whole Cannon thing the DJ announced that Nas was walking in. Everyone got really quite since this was a "surprise." You could hear crickets in the place it was so quite and then it happened, "Sike." False alarm so everyone went back to drinking and dancing. Not much long later Nas did enter but the crowd wasn't trusting the DJ and it didn't quiet down like the last time.

After Nas made his entrance people flocked to the VIP section and the music began. At first it was a bunch of dudes I never heard of and not because I'm square, nobody seemed to know who they were. At one point I was standing next to my friend Andre and I turned around and nudged him. "Yo is that Carmelo Anthony?" I said. "Nah...maybe...I'm not sure." Turns out it was Carmelo but it was odd because he was just standing by himself. He actually looked kinda lonely, you think one of the best ballers in the league would have a few more friends.

Somewhere around this time I kinda blacked out. I wasn't wasted but I can only remember bits and pieces from that point on. I do remember a few things like Monie Love performing, a little bit of Slick Rick, Tracy Morgan on stage and getting kicked out of the super VIP area for Nas and his family. I got pulled in there and immediately expelled, then pulled back in, and again thrown back out after a picture was taken. None of this was my idea by the way, I like to leave the celebrities alone for the most part.

Yeah, so the rest of the night was a bit of a blur. I heard Kelis popped out of a cake but I don't remeber that shit. I did leave for about an hour and then come back so it could have happened then. Andre never made it back to Jersey, he slept in his car somewhere down near Canal. It was a crazy, crazy night. One of the best parties I've been to in years. From what you hear in the news you would think a hip-hop party would be all ego and tension. It was none of that, everyone there was super cool and just trying to have fun. I'll be telling stories from this one for a while.

Links:
Much better coverage of the event

Nas Surprise Party

More Photos:
Random Flickr Photostream (lots of celebs)
LNP

MP3:
Children's Story (Knock Em Out The Box Remix) - Slick Rick