There are a few signs in life that you’re hitting middle age: policeman starting to look young; your bones making unexpected noises when you sit down; going into a room then forgetting why you went in there in the first place.
Add to that, in a personal music context, being a hip-hop devotee but not “getting” the latest hot-shot rapper de jour. In this case, Travis Scott.
The 24-year-old Texan trap-rapper ticks all the boxes I usually look for in a hip-hop star: fearless stage presence; mouthy demeanour; production cosigns from the most forward-thinking mainstream rapper in the world today, Kanye West.
And yet for all the energy he brought to the MAD stage - only a few hours after a manic performance at Beats on The Beach at the Abu Dhabi Corniche - bounding around and whipping the late-night onlookers into a frenzy, it was left to a man getting on for twice his age and approximately one-fifth as much musical talent to demonstrate how the grown-ups do it.
For the past decade-and-a-bit, Senegal-repping US singer Akon has annoyed our ears with his patented sleazy brand of vocoder/Auto-Tune-loving R‘n’B – seemingly stopping off in the UAE every 25 minutes to appear at a variety of clubs, venues and festivals.
But at MAD, dressed head to toe in white, he positively sparkled with the dazzling impact of a detergent advert turned up to nuclear levels. The set reached a climax with his career peak I Wanna Love You (except not in that exact radio-friendly form), with effortless, genial stamina suggesting that there's plenty more to come from the 43-year-old.
aworkman@thenational.ae