KANYE WEST'S concert at the Gibson Amphitheatre was one of the season's hot tickets, so the backstage crowd after the show had a high celebrity quotient. But all eyes were on one man, Jamie Foxx, who fiddled with his cellphone in a corner.
Men nodded and grinned at him and a cluster of women, loitering without pretense, tilted their chins and smiled when his gaze fell on them. When you are young, rich and you have an Oscar at home, it's pretty easy to sit back and let the world come to you. But Foxx was too focused on the future to dawdle on the distractions of the present.
"It's going to be groundbreaking, what I have planned," Foxx said. He turned toward the wall so he could be better heard. "Kanye and me, we're simpatico. It's going to be like Batman and Robin. It's going to pump it up." Foxx was talking breathlessly about his music career -- that's the music career that he hopes will follow his film career, his television sitcom career and his stand-up comic career. This might seem to be the appropriate time for readers to roll their eyes, but it should be noted that Foxx last week got a Grammy nomination for his singing, and his album doesn't even reach stores until Dec. 20. He also has a searing cameo on West's ubiquitous hit "Gold Digger," which is nominated for the record of the year Grammy. Foxx's role on that song may be dismissed as a vocal stunt, but he hopes to show more.
"I've got so much more inside me," the actor said as he started to look for the exit. "I've got so much music inside me. Tonight was one of the first great moments. It sets it all up."
Earlier in the night, West's show had brought down the house at the Gibson. The rapper prowled the stage with complete command and he did so with the aid of hip-hop's most sophisticated production, and guest appearances by Patti LaBelle, Common and Adam Levine of Maroon 5. But there was no moment more electrifying than the surprise appearance of Foxx, who walked onto the darkened stage and got a roar of applause when the spotlight came up.
He and West performed three songs. But it was hard to tell how much of the crowd excitement was at the sight of Foxx as opposed to the sound of Foxx; for young America, especially young black America, Foxx's climb through pop culture and his triumphant channeling of Ray Charles in "Ray" has made him a hero. That won't be enough to sustain the sort of music career Foxx envisions.
