Atlanta rapper Ludacris likes to play with larger-than-life elements in his music videos -- swollen Popeye arms, gallon-sized wine glasses, giant shoes, three-foot vinyl records. This altered perception is a reoccurring theme, spun from the mind of a guy who somehow makes it hilarious and non-creepy to morph himself into a baby and have a woman change his diaper in the middle of a nightclub. (Yes, really. Check out the mind-bending "Stand Up" video).

Even with just the bare elements of microphones and a turntable, he created a similar vibe onstage Friday night at the Alliant Energy Center during his first appearance ever in Madison. His 41-minute set was too short but he had the crowd of about 900 wrapped up in an infectious party that was bigger than its parts.

He and his sidekick Lil' Fate kept up a snappy pace through thick Southern jams like "What's Your Fantasy," "Pimpin' All Over the World" and Usher's "Yeah." The set skewed heavy on older hits, plus a hat tip to last year's album "Theater of the Mind" with "One More Drink."

Between songs, he briefly hawked his new product, "Conjure Cognac," available at fine liquor stores everywhere, commented that Madisonians must get high on the best weed because we're "so high up on the globe," and gave shout-outs to the black people, the white people, the Latinos and the Asians in the audience. (What, no shout-outs to Hawaiian or other Pacific Islanders?)

Ludacris isn't the most clever or intricate rhymer out there, so his appeal comes mainly in his smooth, seductive delivery and ability to draw the listener into his world. That and his lady-melting charm. He announced at one point that he was "nasty," straight up and with no apologies. This elicited squeals and several offers of marriage.

Madison rarely gets touring hip-hop acts, let alone performers as established and mainstream as Ludacris, a chart-topping rapper with six Grammy Awards, so Friday night's show should have attracted more than 900 people to a 10,000-capacity venue like the Coliseum at the Alliant Energy Center. But it didn't.

Why? Probably because the local promoters are inexperienced and don't seem to have pulled it together enough to promote or run a show well.

The show started about an hour late (an improvement over the 90-plus-minute wait for Sean Kingston's show in the same venue Thursday night). The bloated number of openers -- seven or eight, it was hard to keep track -- was a good spread of regional and local talent (especially University of Wisconsin student group First Wave Music) and kept up the pace once they started. Then a 45-minute wait before Ludacris' performance dragged the show back down.

This wait wouldn't have been so torturous if it hadn't been for two announcers, a man and a woman, who shouted over the DJ's music the entire time with inane requests that the crowd "make some noise" for this and that. They both yelled along the lyrics to songs, and the woman shrieked ad nauseum "Where my ladies at?"

Instead of pumping up the crowd, their antics were obnoxious. There was no indication of who they were, why they were there or why we should care, and the crowd finally turned on them after about 30 minutes.

Ludacris deserved more, and the audience deserved more.

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