‘Disrespected’ Snow Tha Product vows to never return to Reno

“Reno, I’ll never come back here! Enjoy it while it lasts…”

These were the words as California-based rapper Snow Tha Product intro’d her last song with just moments after calling Reno a trash city marking an ominous ending to what had been a party until right before.

To start with, Snow Tha Product shows are a party – with the bi-lingual rapper hitting the stage to smoke and a shower of sparks to throwing out a high energy two hour set of spitfire raps coupled with an array of motion onstage from her dancers and two other rappers – Lexthegreat and AJ Hernz – from her independently run label and team, and shit talking between songs. With a sold-out room, Snow’s delivery commanded the house – walking out mentioning that she had a sore throat and could either drink tea or tequila, and then without hesitation reaching for a bottle of tequila. Clearly struggling with her voice in the beginning, she leaned a little more on her banter between songs – loosely following a set list but responding equally to requests from the crowd, from her backup dancers, and from Lexthegreat and Hernz.

Throughout the set, she would shower the crowd in champagne, talk about the sexy looks of a couple particular security guards before calling the women up onstage to dance with her, reiterate that she responds to energy and the crowd needed to amp it up, filling the stage with women from the crowd to dance who remained onstage for over half her set, and hitting her lyrics hard enough that the energy in the crowd caused the floor of Whitney Peak Hotel to shake. The show was a party from the moment it started – until that trash came to a crashing halt on her next to last song.

As is typical at her shows, she emptied her pockets and told the crowd she was going to be crowd surfing for her song. Encouraging everyone to get their phones out to show how Reno parties. Launching from the stage, she floated around the audience for a moment, before being caught. The crowd carried her to the middle of the venue, where she dropped out of sight. The next moment the stage is being cleared with her team rushing into the crowd and Snow on a live mic threatening to fight people in the crowd – while throwing in a “you’re cute!” that was funny given the abrupt silence and the rest of the room not knowing anything of the rest of the situation.

From the floor she yelled that she had never been dropped while crowd surfing, and that she would never play Reno again. After a few moments, she took the stage, now empty of the crowd of dancers that had filled the stage up until that point. With the whole night having a different tone, she launched into her final song.

From the beginning to the moment she cut out while crowdsurfing, the night had been a party, with high energy performers who were well-versed and tight in their timing and delivery given that Reno fell on the last few nights of their Dale Gas tour. There didn’t seem to be anyone in the crowd who wasn’t all in in the show, and if anyone was, her stories of being a strong LGBTQ-supporting artist who has worked harder to get where she is because of her background and sexuality and history of being taken advantage of in the music industry, and just her ability to connect with the crowd who wants to see a vulnerable human as well as a match that can ignite the party in a moment left everyone enrapt throughout her two hour set.

 As her final song ended and she remained onstage with the mic in her hand by her side, it felt as if everyone was waiting for a moment, something to ease the tension of the rapper they came to see reacting after a moment where the majority of the room could not see what was happening.

“I’ve been stage diving 12 and a half years, and no city’s ever dropped me before. I haven’t felt this disrespected before. I’ll never forget this.” Following which, she walked offstage and the houselights came on.

-Shaun Astor