I cherry picked the three good to great songs that Peewee Longway dropped this year after I sorted through about 250. “Sneaking + Geekin'” may be the definitive document of rap’s dalliance with molly while “80s Crack” is better than anything I’ve heard from Young Thug. This guy knows his drugs.
Sphere: Related ContentZaytoven and his protege Cassius Jay don’t feign any kind of rapping ability. There’s a line on here where Cassius says “Swag swag turnt up coupe de ville,” which I think would be enough to make KRS-One march on Washington. Rather, “Win” is about self-assurance. There’s no bluster or raised voices save for the DJ drop. The track is smooth and confident enough that the two producers can grab the mic and spit elementary brag raps without any apologies.
Risking heresy, I’d compare Zaytoven and Cassius Jay’s mumbled Auto-Tune nonsense to Afrika Bambaataa screaming party raps over a DJ Premier beat. If it sounds good and feels good, it is good.
“Win” appeared on DJ P Exclusivez’ Radio Flow 11 mixtape.
As a bonus, here’s BP Da Realist’s “Straight In” from his Country Money 4 tape, also produced by Zaytoven.
Sphere: Related ContentThe soundtrack to your childhood gets the foreboding boom bap flip you never knew it needed.
On day 2 of Bonnaroo, Seun Kuti started off a delayed 2 PM set by leading his late father’s band, Egypt 80. They sounded fantastic but had a crew of the most apathetic facial-expressioned musicians. After deliberation we agreed that the shekere (think gourd-maraca hybrid) player won for least-enthused. We then headed over to see Sam Smith perform who, as shy as he may seem, had an amazing vocal performance for an outdoor venue. As it was overcast with a threat of rain we headed over to the Comedy Tent to catch TJ Miller’s (HBO’s Silicon Valley) set that had just started. We lucked out because we got there just in time to have Rory Scovel have us laughing so hard that it hurt. More than half of his jokes were centered around a keyboard that was hanging off to the side of the stage… but we weren’t mad. Once that let out we hurried over to see Ben Howard (Amish donuts in hand, as you do) perform a really heartfelt set that we couldn’t tear ourselves away from.
Thus begins the portion of the night where we stood in mud for four hours… and it was worth it. Vampire Weekend performed every possible song you could want to hear from their discography on the What Stage. While Ezra was crooning we decided that we would forgo moving stages and try to get a good vantage point for Kanye.
To warm up the crowd, Kanye blared Pink Floyd’s ‘Time’ which was a fitting, because it was time for Kanye to return to The Farm. Opting to not use the two big screens most headliners use, Kanye used a stage high monitor that displayed a mostly inverted color image of himself. The sides of the stage were draped in stage high curtains which displaced VIPs to the soundboard. The first mention of Kanye’s infamous 2009 ‘Glow In The Dark’ era performance at Bonnaroo, was about there being ‘F*** Kanye’ written on the portapotties prior to his show. The song list was a slight variation from the ‘Yeezus’ arena stateside run. Differences stood out included Mike Dean’s solo guitar shredding on ‘Say You Will’. It would be very un-Kanye to not address his previous Bonnaroo. And he did. The highlight from Kanye’s always unscripted rants was mentioning dead historical figures levels he was trying to reach ranging from Henry Ford to Shakespeare. He went on to mention Elon Musk, which Kanye realized was still alive, and was “his boy”. He went on as he reflected on his career singing “They told me I would never play the Super Bowl, not until I’m super old”. Dj01 caught a chin to the back of the head during ‘Touch The Sky’, when Kanye asked the crowd to test something he was told about the ground shaking if 100,000 people jumped together. He lived and the ground shook.
After stretching our legs and trying in vain to scrape the mud off our shoes we caught Ice Cube announcing “If you think I’m just about Coors Light and kid movies” as an intro to ‘Check Yo Self’. Next, Disclosure brought out Sam Smith as the worst-kept-secret surprise guest to perform ‘Latch’ which, obviously, the crowd went crazy for. Rounding out the night, Skrillex‘s performance felt as if you were in a video game (it even featured Windows XP blue screens). He brought out Damian “Gong” Marley as sneak peak of sorts for his day 3 SuperJam.
Best of the day: Ben Howard
Bonus best: TJ Miller’s response to an audience member yelling “Your girlfriend’s hot!”:
No shit, bitch. I was in Yogi Bear 3D
NBA Jersey of the day: Mike Bibby, Vancouver Grizzlies
Fitbit steps on Bonnaroo Day #2:
Dj01:
Meaghatron:
Day 1 of Bonnaroo 2014 for ML started off with checking out the one band man Robert DeLong who continued to impress by playing a mix of electronic instruments (including a Wii controller) along with drums and keys. With time to kill we stumbled across Quickie Mart at the Silent Disco which is new and improved for the 2014 season. Quickie Mart is a DJ that is new to us but his mix of trap beats and his Simpsons referenced moniker were all fine by us. Next up was MS MR, who drew a huge crowd with their sound that felt to us like a perfect blend of Broods, Florence & The Machine and Paramore at times. Their cover of LCD Soundsystem’s ‘Dance Yrself Clean’ was the highlight. Later in the night we checked out Poliça who, if you didn’t know, is made up of members from Gayngs, Bon Iver, and Doomtree.
Best of the day: BANKS. The young singer had a voice that delivered live. Her cover of Aaliyah’s ‘Are You That Somebody’ did the masterpiece justice, encore worthy. Calling it now, she’s got next.
NBA Jersey of the day: 94-95 Mookie Blaylock Away.
Meaghatron and I are slightly obsessed with tracking the amount of steps we take during a day and last year we hit our respective all-time highs at Bonnaroo. To track just how much fitness you get from just attending Bonnaroo (and to see if we can reach new highs), we will be posting our daily step counts.
Dj01:
Meaghatron:
Our bandanas are ready, we are fully lathered in Nutregena SPF-30 sunscreen and we are off to Bonnaroo. We’ve lost count on how many of these we’ve been to. Here is a quick and easy cheat list of acts you should see. We’ve picked 5 acts per day outside of any headliners.
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
If you scrambling last minute to pack be sure to check out, our suggested things to bring we’ve written about in the past. In addition to that we reflect on years past here are some additional #protips:
Not going to Bonnaroo? Don’t worry, the stream is back again this year (also available on the XBOX app). Meg & Dj01 will both be on twitter, and their instagrams to make to report on what they see, and to make you feel little a bit of FOMO. Instagram: Dj01 / Meaghatron Twitter: Dj01 / Meaghatron
Sphere: Related ContentOne of the few worthwhile tributes from Dilla Day 2014 was Sir & Iman Omari’s “Designated Driver” which mimics James Yancey to satisfying effect. Also peep Omari’s Vibe Tape +?+?+ (2), which includes an oddly succesful neo-soul flip of Modjo’s “Lady”.
Sphere: Related ContentYou know something? Kiddo can actually rap. He picks good beats sometimes too. Maybe this isn’t Termanology all over again.
I can’t remember a more triumphant moment of brag rap than “High & Kick It”.
Wow, who taught Roscoe Dash how to rap? Yes readers, we’re not above sharing a Roscoe Dash song when it’s awesome. He and Scotty share an impressive double time flow to boot.
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