He started off the night with his love for Lansing and Detroit. Later, he exclaimed his love for Michigan State University.

For Sean Anderson, otherwise known as “Big Sean,” Common Ground in Lansing was his homecoming. He cherished all of the moments and people attending the concert.

“Lansing, MSU, Detroit…ya’ll are in my family or my clique,” he said.

And he began the song, “Clique.”

On the night of July 11, rapper “Big Sean” came to Lansing for the Common Ground Concert series. It was a night of memories for the rapper, as he went down his laundry list of his personal connections to the mid-Michigan area.

He told the crowd his story about the girl he fell in love with at Michigan State who went to the same high school as him (Detroit Cass Technical). Sean has mentioned in the past that he was admitted to Michigan State, but decided to pursue his career in music instead.

At Common Ground, he rapped to the song “Ashely,” who lived in Hubbard Hall on MSU campus.

Sean also gave a shoutout to his cousin who goes to Michigan State. He was able to get many in the crowd to wish her a happy 21st birthday on the count of three.

Considering he has performed recently at the Palace of Auburn Hills and Joe Louis Arena, it was suspect whether he would have the same amount of energy and hype compared to his bigger venue shows (his show at Joe Louis Arena was known as “The Big Show). And considering he has performed at MSU a handful of times, natural excitement and momentum was suspect.

But with all of his personal anecdotes, any Michigan concert of Big Sean is exciting to watch Sean lived up to expectations regardless of the setting. On a scale of one to 10, his performance at Common Ground was a seven. He brought out the Rico the Lion mascot during the song “Guap,” and added some custom freestyles throughout the night. He played a few throwbacks like “Supa Dupa Lemonade” and “burn,” while getting at least 75 percent of the crowd active for each song.

In the end, he still came back to his memories in Michigan.

Alex Scharg is a multimedia journalist for Impact 89FM.

Photo: Adam Bussell