Snow Tha Product Was a Homegrown Star in Waiting at Trees on Saturday

Snow Tha Product
Trees, Dallas
Saturday, August 15, 2015

Snow Tha Product deserves to be a star. That much has been beyond doubt since she released the video for "Holy Shit" in 2011, a video that was so impressive it got her a contract with Atlantic Records. In the 90-second, black-and-white clip, she pops off a rapid-fire flow and confronts any possible detractors, whether they target her race, gender or ability to write. It's a phenomenal performance. The only problem? Four years later, Snow isn't a star. Yet.

Saturday night Snow visited Trees for the Dallas stop of her The Rest Comes Later tour, but there wasn't anything to suggest that she's an artist with a chip on her shoulder about not getting the mainstream attention she deserves. No, this was a homecoming show for the rapper who was born in California but now resides in Fort Worth. Even her mother was there. Snow brought her mother onstage and the two danced to the Spanish music that her mother initially wished she would make instead of rapping.

Snow has done well for herself in the four years since "Holy Shit" dropped, and the near-sellout crowd at Trees proved just how passionate her local following is. But she still hasn't released the debut studio album that she likely needs to take things to the next level. She's released two mixtapes, Good Nights & Bad Mornings and Good Nights & Bad Mornings 2, worked with a slew of high-profile artists such as Tech N9ne, Lupe Fiasco and Too $hort and has garnered a loyal fanbase known as Product Pushers through not only her music but her popular web series Woke.TV and social media presence.
So Snow's left to get the word out by taking things directly to the people, and on Saturday she did her best to create a party atmosphere for the audience by popping off confetti cannons, spraying water and encouraging a whole lot of crowd surfing. She did some crowdsurfing after earning the trust of the crowd. The energy Snow put into the show shouldn’t go unrecognized considering she was losing her voice before the show even started and walked on stage sipping tea and honey. (She must have begun to feel better as the night went on because she was sipping from a Hennessy bottle later in the evening. Although maybe that's why she was feeling better?)

Nonetheless, Snow ran through a stretch of rowdy, fan-favorite party bangers such as “Hola,” “Gettin’ It” and “Cookie Cutter Bitches” without the assistance of a vocal track and in turn continuously asked the venue to turn her mic up louder. Judging from the crowd’s reaction it’s easy to see that her fans love the fun tracks she produces that are worthy of soundtracking a Saturday night, but it seems as if Snow is afraid to stray away from that formula. 
Toward the end of the night Snow talked to the crowd about doing something different. She mentioned, “I like to rap fast because I like for y’all to know I’m skilled,” and asked if it was OK if she strayed away from the party raps for a bit to perform a newer track. Without any objections she went on to close out her show with “Bet That I Will.” On the brand-new track, she makes a bit of a nod back to the “Holy Shit” track and pops off lines about vendettas, dealing with comparisons to Nicki Minaj and Iggy Azalea’s success and Mexican pride. It’s a snarling track that demands attention and reignites that initial reason why Snow Tha Product seemed destined for greatness. More important, the crowd didn't react any differently to this declaration than to any of the party anthems before it.

Going forward it would be good to know that Snow isn’t in danger of pigeonholing herself to one style of music, because she’s too talented and charismatic for that. Hopefully when her studio debut album is released by Atlantic, it’ll feature a wide-ranging style of raps and she’ll continue to move toward becoming the star she’s always seemed destined to become. In the meantime she still has an adoring fanbase whom she still does right by: After the show on Saturday night, Snow stuck around to meet the hundreds or so who wanted to meet her. 

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