I was disappointed that the crowd voted to hear 2019 single “Babushka Boi” over mixtape cut “Brand New Guy” as the final song. It’s been a decade since I downloaded LiveLoveA$AP to my iPod, and Rocky unfortunately seemed ready to leave that material in the past with a set focused on newer material from the Testing era onwards. Did any of this sociopolitical imagery manifest in Rocky’s new tracks? Not really! But the Harlem rapper was exceedingly comfortable onstage, even spontaneous, dropping a Famous Dex track in honor of his collaborator’s hometown and singing “L$D” at the crowd’s request. Between songs, Swae called out all the college kids in the crowd to encourage them to “stay on the right path.” He also said, “Music is the vaccine,” some nice-sounding nonsense that is, I guess, marginally better than spreading vaccine misinformation?Ī$AP Rocky’s headlining set opened with a video montage of Black Lives Matter flags, burning cop cars, and photos of George Floyd. Friday in particular felt like a time capsule from the recent past: Lil Yachty played Lil Boat-era confections and hits like “Broccoli” and “I Spy,” while Swae Lee opened with Sremmlife bangers “No Type” and “No Flex Zone” and continued through a stacked set of Rae Sremmurd songs and solo features. If you were in college in 2016, this was basically a nostalgia festival the same way Just Like Heaven is for blog-rock fans. Swae Lee with a message to college students at Lyrical Lemonade Summer Smash in Chicago. Twista is ancient history to this crowd, so I was pleasantly surprised at the rapturous response. Supa Bwe introduced his last song by yelling “Fuck 12, fuck CPD!” with knowing venom, then brought out local hero Twista to perform his 2004 track “Overnight Celebrity.” “Chi-town legend!” a white woman in the audience yelled as the guest emerged. Femdot rapped his dextrous verses without any backing vocals and led the crowd in a Pivot Gang chant in tribute to Squeak, who was murdered just a few days before the festival began, causing his friend and collaborator Saba to withdraw from the lineup. “The crowd was really feeling me, and I feel the love and support, and that’s something that I didn’t feel in the beginning, but it showed here.”īank$ was one of a dozen or so Chicago rappers on the bill, signs of the festival organizers’ roots in the city. “It was really life-changing for me, because I am a new artist, so it was definitely crazy to go and perform in front of my city,” she said. Speaking after her set, she gushed about the importance of doing her first festival set at home. Baha Bank$ opened the fest on the Lenny’s Tent side stage by performing her twerk anthems accompanied by two back-up dancers in matching jewel tone costumes. Most of the rappers on the bill didn’t rap their verses so much as hype up their own pre-recorded tracks. While waiting in line for a food truck at one point, I saw a mixtape CD laying in the dirt it may as well have been a fossil. I was atypical for several reasons: wearing a mask, hanging in the back of the crowd, and old enough to remember where I was on 9/11. Solorio told the Chicago Tribune they sold tickets for 30,000 attendees a day, a racially diverse mix of college-aged partiers and a few chaperoning parents. It’s rare to see a hip-hop focused festival beyond the Rolling Loud franchise, especially in Chicago, but the niche is working for SS. The brand’s blog continues to spotlight upcoming and unsigned artists, a vital curator for a generation of hip-hop that begins with the “Soundcloud rap” wave immortalized in XXL’s 2016 Freshman Class. Lyrical Lemonade has built a dedicated fanbase thanks to Bennett’s distinctive neon animation flourishes and ear for young talent the 25-year-old videographer filmed the clip for Juice WRLD’s breakout hit “Lucid Dreams” and has kept launching stars since. Last weekend was the third installment of Summer Smash in Chicago’s Douglass Park, a festival co-owned by Cole Bennett’s music video company and brand Lyrical Lemonade and Berto Solorio’s promotion company SPKRBX. Or, to quote a beloved Gen Z children’s song, “My world’s on fire, how about yours? That’s the way I like it and I never get bored.” Yes Virginia, they do sell edibles here. Summer Smash understands the ethos of its college-aged target market, smuggling gray market vape cartridges in their Vlone tees and Perc 30 basketball jerseys: Things are bad, let’s rage while we can. The second thing I saw was a kid with a patchy goatee exclaim “They sell edibles here?” at the sight of delta8 joints and brownies for sale at one of the vendor tents. The first thing I saw inside the gates of the Lyrical Lemonade Summer Smash was a memorial: a painted mural of Squeak PIVOT, Juice WRLD, and King Von, three musicians with little in common besides their city of origin and their untimely deaths.
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