2014 Music Festivals Announcement Round Up
Music festivals in America and abroad are beginning to hit critical mass. It's our generation's sign of approval to any artist if they find themselves on a bevy of festival lineups come summer, they're doing something right. Perhaps the most prevalent "music for the people" approach in the industry, festivals allow acts both large and small great opportunities for exposure and listeners the chance to attempt to take it all in. The spring/summer of 2014 is shaping up to be one of the largest festival seasons in recent memory and event organizers have wasted no time announcing jam-packed lineups that look more like an iTunes playlist than a real concert experience. We gathered together lineups from festivals from coast to coast and even beyond to give you the most full, in-depth guide to diving into festival season, check them all out on the following pages.
[Feature] Freeway Ricky Ross: Hustlers Mentality
Photo by Andres Herren
Fourteen years ago in Florida, a correctional officer by the name of William Leonard Roberts II had grown tired of the long hours, low pay and disrespect that being a prison guard afforded. A fan of hip-hop, Roberts decided to try his hand at the craft and, to further pad his perceived 'thug' hip-hop persona, adopted the name of famed drug dealer 'Freeway' Ricky Ross, who at the time was in jail on charges of international cocaine trafficking. Soon, he popped up on Slip n' Slide Records, discussing the finer points of moving large amounts of narcotics across the American borders with heavy bravado, big claims for a man who had been working for the man just months before. If you bought an album named Mastermind by an artist named 'Rick Ross' last week, you've been duped.
In 1998, while Roberts II was trying on the name Rick Ross, tailoring it to his needs, the man who's name was hijacked was in prison, doing all he could to piece his life back together and right the connotations he had perpetuated for the moniker.
"I couldn’t sell drugs now, not knowing what I know today,” said Freeway in an interview we did over the phone last October. "At the same time when I look back at my knowledge and circumstances at the time, I really had no choice.”
[Songs of the Day] 3/26/14 (Feat. Chance The Rapper, SZA, Sam Smith & More)
Alright, an post-SXSW Song of the Day is back with a ton of good tracks to get you through the hump of the week. Leading things off is Chance The Rapper's latest, "Home Studio", produced with his team, The Social Experiment in his California-based home studio. The track features more of Chance's evolution into singing and adding vocal runs which seems to get better with every track. Chano also popped up on TDE-affiliate SZA's latest track, "Child's Play" which dropped the same day, alongside another familiar face in Vic Mensa who got on Asher Roth's latest, "Live Fast" off his upcoming project, RetroHash. Jerome LOL offered up a screeching, up-tempo electronic jam in "Feel It For The First Time" while The Code gave fans an ambient feel with their latest in "Her". SaudiMoney linked with another TDE member in Ab-Soul as he offered up a mouthful of a track on "Alejandro Jodorowsky Flow" and California product by way of Chicago, Lee Woods, put her own unique spin on The Spice Girls' iconic track "Say You'll Be There" as she resurrects the 90s on her recently-released Girl Power project. Bringing up the end is none other than British falsetto Sam Smith who offers up something new on "Stay With Me". It's all streaming below, folks.
Track of the Day: Chance The Rapper & The Social Experiment: "Home Studio"
Chance The Rapper & The Social Experiment: "Home Studio" (Back Up In This B*tch)
Asher Roth: "Fast Life" (Feat. Vic Mensa)
SZA: "Child's Play" (Feat. Chance The Rapper)
Jerome LOL: "Feel It For The First Time"
The Code: "Her"
SaudiMoney: "Alejandro Jodorowsky Flow" (Feat. Ab-Soul)
Scotty ATL: "Trash & Treasure"
Lee Woods: "Say You'll Be There"
Sam Smith: "Stay With Me"
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[SXSW Interview] Cheers Elephant, SXSW Veterans
Photography by Andrew Zeiter
Watch Cheers Elephant for even a fraction of a sogn and you can tell they've been doing this for awhile. The majority of the upbeat, indie rock from Los Angeles by way of Philadelphia has been playing together since grade school, plenty of time to get to know one another and smooth out the rough spots in any performance piece. Unlike most somewhat-traditional four piece bands I caught throughout the whirlwind that was SXSW, Cheers Elephant (which may have one of the best band name-backstories there are) had life, excitement and personality lost amongst many 'rock' bands today. Frontman Derek Krzywicki, who has a name only I can truly appreciate, is a breath of fresh air onstage, playfully moving his hips in a faux Elvis impression, gliding across the stage, managing to not interrupt a guitar solo while carefully executing yoga-like moves. If he is the hook then the music is the sinker as the rest of the band backs up his front-of-stage heroics with a general aesthetic that perfectly lent itself to a mid-afternoon day in Austin, Texas. Before they got onstage I was able to link up with the guys from Cheers Elephant and chop it up about their packed schedule of twelve shows in a week, how the world has treated them and everything in between just before they took the stage at the Big Picture Media showcase at the Thirsty Nickel on Wednesday March 12. Read the full conversation here.
[SXSW Interview] The Tontons, Well on Their Way
Photography by Andrew Zeiter
Back in November I was in Austin for a different festival, Fun Fun Fun Fest, where I first met Asli Omar and the guys from The Tontons. At the time, the four piece blues-y rock group from Houston was riding a wave of publicity en route to their breakthrough project, Make Out King and Other Love Stories, a harrowing 11-song project that puts forward the young band's strengths both vocally and in building complex, attention-grabbing tracks that have launched them from their native Houston and brought them back to the annual business card emporium that is South By Southwest. Back in November the squad of Omar, Tom Nguyen and Justin and Adam Martinez were hungry, eagerly anticipating the release of their project, Make Out King which dropped soon afterwards on February 18 of this year. Anticipating a big jump in notoriety, the world offered up some obstacles after their drummer, Justin, fell ill with a bad appendix that landed him in the hospital for two weeks, arriving in Austin straight from his stay there, a literal hole still in his side. Rock N' Roll. Anyway, it's obvious the music world has taken The Tontons in directions they would have never expected, and a bit of the frustration was evident in talking to them this time around. Through it all though, The Tontons have an innately upbeat spirit that makes even them jokingly talking about being jaded seem like being on the outside of an inside joke. They play great and make music that transcends radio trends or falsified public relations campaigns. The Tontons are the band you come to SXSW to see, and I was lucky enough to get a few minutes of their time before they played the Big Picture Media Showcase at The Thirsty Nickel to see how everyone was doing and where the ship is headed in 2014.
[SXSW Interview] Bishop Nehru Embodies 'The Twenty Year Loop'
Photography by Asia Ashley
For the length of my career covering music, one theory has always stayed planted firmly in the back of my mind. Explained to me in one of my first interviews, with 9th Wonder in 2009, the 'Twenty Year Loop' has shaped much of the way I have consumed and understood music, culture and art since. The idea is somewhat simple, that every two decades, themes, aesthetics and ideas will re-emerge and manifest themselves once again in popular culture. It can explain the current 90s trend we're enjoying, the bell bottom craze of the late 90s and even bridge to presidents No. 41 and 43. I've never been more eager to sit down with an artist to discuss this phenomena than I was last week in Austin as I arrived at The Omni Hotel to talk to 17-year-old NYC phenom Bishop Nehru. The young artist from Rockland County, NY has a distinctly Nas-like flow that is easily recognizable throughout his breakout project, Nehruvia which was released last year. If we're following the Twenty Year Loop to a t, then that would put us in 1994. On April 19 of that year, Nas released a little project by the name of Illmatic, which can be fully felt on every rhyme Nehru spits. In essence, Bishop Nehru is the Twenty Year Loop personified. This is not to say he is a carbon copy of Nasir Jones, far from it. Instead, the point is to draw a map of the way influences work and how they manifest in music today. To be sure, Nehru has set himself up for a productive career in hip-hop, having been tapped by WorldStarHipHop as their 'Rap Act of the Week' in July 2012 at age 15 for an 8-bar freestyle over Mos Def's "Mathematics". Since then he has garnered co-signs from his idol, Nas, opened for Wu Tang Clan on their 20th Anniversary Tour and positioned himself as the true boom-bap artist to be reckoned with. Currently working on his MF Doom-produced project which he calls 'the first project he's been proud off all the way through,' epect to hear Bishop Nehru's name talked about a couple decades from now when influences get brought up. Check out my Q+A with the budding east coast MC.
[SXSW Interview] The Radkey Brothers Are Bringing Punk Back
Photography by Ra Ra Photography
By the time I had gotten to The Hangar on 4th and Colorado, SXSW had begun to weigh on me. In what is easily evident from the journals throughout the week, this year's South By was filled a bit more to the brim with corporate positioning and exclusive shows than actually enjoying new, fresh music on the cusp. These three brothers from St. Joseph, Missouri, however changed all that pretty quickly. I jogged up the last step to the rooftop of The Hangar with my photographer, Asia Ashley, right on my heels as Radkey tore into the beginning of their set. As a decent crowd stood back, drinks in hand, smug looks in place watching the three young artists it became readily obvious these guys were a little different. With powerful chord progressions and vocals that stack beautifully and play well to the ear melodically, Dee Solomon and Isaiah pulled the crowd toward them one by one. As if in a trance, couples began gyrating towards each other, older men nodded their heads and stomped their feet and some stood open-mouthed. It seems somewhat uncomfortable, if only because it had been awhile since anyone had heard an act like this in today's electronically-saturated music climate. Isaiah rolled on the floor furiously tearing away at his white guitar as Dee handled the vocals and stood, power-stanced at the mic. As calm as could be, the youngest brother Solomon kept pace on the drums. The three brothers stand out in punk rock, a genre that has been largely out of the spotlight for the better part of a decade, both for their smooth playing and their age. As part of a new resurgence in the genre that is led by both them and The Orwells, these three brothers from a little town in Missouri are ready to take the music to the forefront once again, with true punk grit to match. While their live show may be a frenetic, in your face experience, Dee, Isaiah and Solomon may be the nicest bunch I've had the chance to interview. The next few months will find them across the country and in Japan, the mecca of some of their favorite pastimes: Anime and video games. Check out my candid Q+A with the next big thing out of St. Joseph, Missouri.
[SXSW] Music Festival 2014 Recap
Photo by Kristen Wrzesniewski
In 1977, a water skiing Henry Winkler wore a leather coat and life preserver and attempted to 'jump the shark' in a move that become synonymous with the beginning of the end of a good thing. In that regard it was the long-running "Happy Days" sitcom. Last week in Austin, Texas, it was the South by Southwest Music conference that took the leap from humble beginnings to corporate cash in it's own rendition of 'jumping the shark'. No one pointed it out better than TDE-signee and Oxymoron artist Schoolboy Q, who interrupted his set at the Complex House several times to address several SXSW sets he played for 'yuppies' while his real fans stood outside unable to get in. Alas, the 2014 edition of SXSW couldn't have been described better. An armful of wristbands, garnered through careful planning and RSVPs was instantly trumped by a litany of barriers between them and the artists they had traveled to see. When it began in 1987, the festival was a place for new and unsigned artists to get recognized and for true fans to catch them before they hit the big time. Today, to put it the words of my Journalism professor, it is essentially 'one big blow job'. Despite a lack of a real industry, or perhaps because of it, record labels funnel top-tier artists to the highest bidders, who more often than not come with long guest lists that leave fans sitting outside wondering where all the public transportation in this 'city' is. Even the Illmore, the exclusive house party that has become a staple of the fest, running late into the night with star-studded performance, seemed a bit too big this year in it's new home at a sterile youth center.
For me, the best part of the week was living vicariously as if the SXSW Schoolboy Q encountered was somewhere else. I hustled interviews with true rising acts in Philadelphia-based Cheers Elephant, who's onstage presence is obviously culled from years of performing together and who I'm sure saw a significant boost afterwards, The Tontons, a Houston indie/soul group with a personality to match that hit SXSW on the heels of their latest project, the well received Make Out King and Other Stories of Love. Then there was Radkey, the trio of young brothers, aged 16, 18 and 20 respectively who single-handedly got me back into punk rock with one of the wildest, most raw sets I have seen in a long time, and 17-year-old Bishop Nehru who very well may be the second coming of Nas, The Lonely Biscuits, a band of Belmont University students who stopped down to ATX between projects and mid-terms. They weren't a sit down with Rick Ross, or an in-depth on Phantogram, but the stories I was able to dig up throughout my time at SXSW made me proud to be able to say I saw through the thick haze of bullshit and gerrymandering that descends on the city for a week and actually seek out acts that benefited from the experience.
To be sure, it was two Chicago artists who not only embodied all that SXSW should be, but capitalized on it to continue their independent, organic rises out of their hometown. A year ago, Chance The Rapper ran around SXSW playing sets in anticipation of his yet-to-be-released album, Acid Rap that turned 2013 into a roller coaster of experiences for the 20-year-old MC. At that time, Vic Mensa was still performing as part of the band Kids These Days, which broke up soon after Chance dropped his project on April 30. The two close friends arrived again in Austin at wildly different points in their careers. Chance, with just about every accolade possible under his belt is becoming the biggest independent artist in recent memory, while Mensa, fresh off a plane from Norway, put on a marathon of sets throughout the week that had crowds buzzing in the street about the kid from the Midwest with the funky, different flow to him. Chance's only show was cut short by Fire Marshalls, an ode to his popularity and a crux of the festival at large while also picking up a Woodie award with Austin Vesely for the "Everybody's Something" video. As independent, self-funded artists, Chance and Vic may have embodied the spirit of what SXSW is supposed to be better than anyone else in Austin this week.
In 1977, Fonzie made history by ruining a good thing while ten feet in the air on water skis, in 2014 Lady Gaga did the same by performing beneath a carefully-placed canopy of Doritos bags. Corporate money has always been prevalent (early 2000s 'ringtone rap), and it's just another chapter in the money making something so genuine so utterly unrecognizable.