A Woman Beater, a Phenom, a Pleasant Surprise, and a One Hit Wonder: SFist's Erick Pressman reports back from Thursday night's Wild 94.9's Wild Jam at HP Pavilion.

by Erick Pressman

While this contributor has made a reputation of being the "resident aggressive music expert" for SFist, we are not limited to listening to loud guitars, blast beats, mosh parts, and dudes screaming bloody murder over their ex-girlfriends. We have a giant soft spot for radio hip hop and r+b, and while driving around the mean streets of Oakland in various borrowed automobiles, we are often bumping the latest jams on both Wild 94.9 and KMEL 106.

One of our favorite up-and-coming hip hop/rap/urban (we are using all three of these terms to help quell the inevitable flame war in the article comments section over what counts as "real" hip hop vs rap or what have you) artists is Toronto, Ontario's own Drake. We were hooked the first time we heard his break-out single, "Best I Ever Had," while on tour last summer, and have been following him closely now for the better part of a year. Needless to say, when he was announced as the headliner to the 2010 Wild 94.9 Wild Jam, we were determined to get into Thursday night's show, mix it up with the urban youth of the Bay Area, and see our boy Drizzy do his thing live and blow our hair back in a way it has yet to be blown back.

Aside from Drake, the Wild Jam line-up was rounded out by soon-to-be one-hit-wonders Far East Movement, up-and-coming crooner Bruno Mars, and infamous woman-beater Chris Brown. Growing up in the hardcore scene pays off in mysterious ways, and we landed a guest list spot for Wild Jam. So we left the relative unsafe comfort of Oakland and headed down to San Jose to mix it up in the suburbs with the late teens to early twenties club kids of the Bay Area.