The biggest event of the semester will be right hurr in Kent this weekend.

With disappointing show after disappointing show from All Campus Programming Board in the last few years, it’s nice to finally see a name we recognize on the homecoming performance roster – an instance we hope to see continue when FlashFest rolls around in the Spring.

The beacon of ACPB hope is Howard Bailey, Jr., but you can call him Chingy.

We were just as surprised as the rest of campus when we heard that the R&B star (whose song “Pullin’ Me Back” is all over the radio and edging the top of the Top 40) would be the featured artist at this year’s Homecoming Concert. Saturday, for a fee of $5 per student and $20 for the general public, Chingy and Ray Cash will light up the M.A.C. Center.

And that moment of initial surprise is justified.

Toward the end of September, the Undergraduate Student Senate allocated $279,528 to the All Campus Programming Board. At that meeting, leaders of ACPB acknowledged the fact that it had been unimpressive in the headliner category with many of the events it had planned in the past couple of years.

While a lot of the money is slated to go toward the disaster that has been FlashFest, a good portion of the remaining sum must be going to Chingy. Congrats to ACPB for at least attempting to correct the disappointment of many students.

With President Lester Lefton and the USS’s goal of creating better retention rates, this (and a stepped up FlashFest) will certainly help. It’s hard to gauge the number of students who have left or dropped out because of the lack of entertainment Kent State and the Kent community has to offer, but it all goes back to the common complaint that there’s nothing to do in Kent. This weekend, however, there’s no excuse. You can see Chingy.

Granted, we may not be Chingy enthusiasts. To us, he’s just the guy who likes to chill at the Holiday Inn and who made thurr a legitimate spelling for there. But at least we know that much and have heard of the Homecoming performance artist — something that couldn’t really be said of last year’s performers, GZA and DJ Scribble.

It leaves hope for the future, and it’s good to see that ACPB is taking a step in the right direction after being blasted for the past two years’ performance choices. The number attending Chingy might even surpass the number of people who attended the plethora of events during last semester’s FlashFest.

The above editorial is the consensus opinion of the Daily Kent Stater editorial board.