Despite being booked for a show just hours earlier, T-Pain will still be headlining this year’s Last Day of Classes concert.
Concerns about potential conflicts in T-Pain's schedule began circulating through Duke’s social media channels—including the All Duke group on Facebook and with anonymous questions on Yik-Yak—Wednesday afternoon. This speculation followed an April 6 post from the Black Student Alliance at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University announcing a T-Pain concert on April 22, the same day as LDOC. Although there were rumors that the artist would be canceling his appearance at Duke, the LDOC committee confirmed that he is still set to perform at this year’s concert.
“We would like to assure Duke students that we have a contract with T-Pain,” said LDOC Committee Co-Chair Anton Saleh, a sophomore. “From our end, he is coming to Duke––he is contractually obligated to be at the show playing his set.”
The LDOC committee was not made aware of the same-day appearance at Virginia Tech at the time of booking, Saleh explained. He added that Duke was first to book the artist.
“When you book a show you ask if there are any other prior arrangements," Saleh said. “It’s an expectation that an artist will play one show a day and that there would be nothing even remotely conflicting.”
Both Saleh and fellow LDOC committee co-chair David Soled, a sophomore, were made aware of the potential conflict through a separate Facebook post about two weeks ago but decided to try and resolve the matter before it became public, Saleh said.
Saleh emphasized that the LDOC committee is working to ensure that T-Pain will be at Duke to play his set. He added that both T-Pain’s manager and agent are more than confident that T-Pain will be able to perform at both places.
“We immediately brought it to our advisors that day and have been working with [T-Pain’s] management ever since,” Saleh noted.
T-Pain is currently set to perform a 30 minute set for Virginia Tech students at 6:30 p.m. and then begin his hour-long, headline LDOC performance at 10 p.m. Hip-hop singer Jeremih, American indie pop band Misterwives and Spencer Bruno, a Duke junior and DJ whose stage name is Spencer Brown, will also perform at the event.
In a tweet Wednesday, T-Pain announced that he will be taking a private jet from one show to the other.
Saleh added that after seeing T-Pain’s schedule for the day, he feels confident that the artist will be on time for his performance at Duke.
“We can only control what [T-Pain] is here for and that he’s here for our performance," Saleh said. “We have no control over what artists choose to do during the day. As long as he makes it here to play our show, that is all we are concerned about.”
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