On November 24 from 8:00 pm to 10:30 p.m, many rhythm and blues artists performed in the Kupferberg Center for the Arts, bringing in a large audience of 1750 guests to the Queens College theatre.
The event started off with DJ Richard Ricardo remixing songs from artists JLO, Jay Z, 50 Cent, Usher and P-Diddy.
Ginuwine, a rhythm and blues artist that had his first album released in 1996 titled, “Ginuwine…the Bachelor,” was the first singer of the evening. He performed a 25-minute set including some of his hit songs, “None of Your Friends Business” (1999), “Pony” (1996), “So Anxious” (1999), “Hell Yeah” (2003) and “In Those Jeans” (2003).
Ginuwine invited up all of the ladies of the audience onstage where he started to sing to them and handed out roses, getting the attendees of the show more involved for the next two acts.
Slim, Daron Jones, Mike Keith and Quinnes Parker from 112, an R&B quartet from Atlanta performed second and sang “Peaches and Cream” (2001), “You Already Know” (2004) and “It’s Over Now” (2001), carrying out their 40-minute set with a lot of choreography and getting the whole crowd moving.
Matthew McCarthy, 25, from Long Island was an attendee of the concert. As a musician he said it was “a thrilling event with an exuberant atmosphere. The event brought such joy from the many attendants there and was majestic in its own right,” McCarthy said. “The music was lively, the vocalists were very soulful and I felt like I could connect with them on a musical level.”
Peter Gunz, from hip hop duo Peter Gunz & Lord Tariq and star of VH1’s “Love and Hip Hop New York,” was the holiday bash’s special guest and performed “Uptown Baby” (1997) before the final act.
The performance ended with artists KC and Jojo taking the stage for over an hour. The duo started singing together in 1996. They sang their hit song “All My Life” (2010), where they invited 112 and Ginuwine back to the stage to sing with them. The duo also sang other songs from their time in the quartet Jodeci.
The event planning for the concert started in September by Assistant Vice President of Queens College, Jeffrey Rosenstock. It was made possible by the grand sponsor of the New York Community Bank, which will be sponsoring the Kupferberg Center for the next ten years, according to Rosenstock.
Raheem Leslie, 36, from Staten Island was an attendee of the show, and said he plans to come back to the Kupferberg Center for more events.
“I was so surprised at how many people attended,” Leslie said. “This was a great show and the music sang tonight brought back a lot of memories.”
