As soon as rapper Styles P took the stage he made an announcement – he wasn’t allowed to swear or smoke onstage, two of his signatures.

Despite the censorship, Styles P rocked the sold out crowd Wednesday night in a satisfying concert by playing cuts from his personal catalog and from his band The Lox’s repertoire.

Styles didn’t curse the whole night, instead leaving the crowd to fill in the obscenities.

‘They should’ve been able to (curse),’ said Alex Mitchell-Hardt, a senior marketing major. ‘But he’s the man for having the crowd feel ill.’

DJ AKO opened the show with a set that succeeded in its execution but failed to ignite a crowd waiting for the main event. Rapper Staxx also performed a couple songs, and while his flow was tight, for some reason he never looked at the audience, instead choosing to look across the stage. If the anticipation couldn’t get any crazier for the main act, right before Styles P came out, a girl fainted in the front row.

Styles opened his set with ‘Super Gangster’ from his new album ‘Super Gangster (Extraordinary Gentleman).’ He followed that up with more cuts from his new album and recent mixtapes, which had the crowd moshing and screaming.

The crowd went crazy when Styles jumped over the stage barrier and moved through the crowd while performing ‘Kiss Your Ass Goodbye’ and The Lox anthem ‘Wild Out.’

He had the crowd going crazy and rapping along to the anthem ‘Good Times (I Get High),’ one of Styles’ classic cuts from the album ‘Gangster and a Gentleman.’

Styles closed out the show with his new anthem ‘Blow Your Mind.’ And while Styles’ set was a little on the short side, about 45 minutes, his energy and his crowd interaction was topnotch.

Considering the limitations put on him regarding the language, Styles P proved he really is a gangster and a gentleman.

‘He was a crowd pleaser,’ said Paige Bresky, a sophomore broadcast journalism major. ‘Very entertaining.’

[email protected]

Published on April 2, 2008 at 12:00 pm