The Sweetlife Festival was in the backyard of the Dupont Sweetgreen store last year. This year, it held almost 13000 people at the Merriweather Post Pavillion. The Lineup was astounding for such a young festival, and despite the rain, each act brought a welcome boost of energy to the stage. Bryan and I were there for the day, tweeting stuff, and taking as best of pictures as we could. Enjoy them below. Read More »
RA the MC helped us all forget that it was actually only like 3PM. Dimmed lights, sharp lines, and the percussive help of fellow Hoya Ezra Finney all caught on camera for your viewing pleasure. Click through for some footage from Mercies’s energetic set.
Georgetown freshman Tate Tucker has a mixtape, Blue Dreams, in the making that we over at WGTB are salivating for. In the meantime, he’s given us a single, “Clueless.” This track, like a lot of his work, shows the beginnings of a very promising trajectory for Tucker. In the first verse he gets the alliterative and lyrical gymnastics all out of his system. It’s impressive, definitely, but the second verse is really what inspires me about this young talent. He manages to transcend the particularities and some of the hedonistic indulgences of being a freshman rapper and write intelligently about his identity, “I’m a ying yang specimen, black dad, white mom, identity peddling, hardest working nigga that I know check the regiment.” Tucker is bursting with ambition and talent, and his journey to craft that talent intelligently and restrain himself judiciously is going to be really interesting, and enjoyable, to watch.
Stream and download the track after the jump.
I can’t gush about Jessica Lea Mayfield any more. The girl can do it all, and her sound translates gracefully into a live performance. Though the Black Cat was unusually attentive Tuesday night, a couple of suit-strapping, suburban lobbyists were seriously creeping out Mayfield with marriage proposals in between songs. Seriously dude, do you really want to end up in one of her songs? She seemed nonetheless flattered and a little surprised by the crowd, and when artists are happy we’re happy. Click through for pics of Mayfield and her opener, Daniel Martin Moore.
“Because people don’t know what nature looks like without trash.” That’s what Jon said to me after we finished filming out on the banks of the Potomac. I asked, mostly to myself, why there was so much trash out there. Stupid question, I know, but his answer revealed an awareness of his environment, and a matter-of-fact-like disappointment with the lack of everyone else’s. Read More »
Let’s be real for a second. Child stars don’t have a chance. Even the most normal of them end up pretty effed up. We think of them only by watching super slowed down clips of them singing creepy songs about p.i.z.z.a. or watching their public derailment via a spiral of downer meds and reality TV shows. Yet, we have no remorse in endorsing any child star that pops his cute little pre-pubescent punim on the front page of Teen People, knowing full well that the more we feed the fire, the more barren we will leave the forest of their souls. Their stupid, unknowing souls.
Jessica Lea Mayfield can’t fall in love. She has examined herself and her lovers from every angle and can’t seem to figure out what’s going wrong. She certainly wants nothing more than to be in love—a mature incarnation of a little girl’s princess fantasy– but she can’t honestly connect with those she loves. Except maybe on her latest album, Tell Me. Even here, though, you have to look into the lyrics to find her mental cacophony because her deadpan voice gives hardly anything anyway. She’s the least believable narrator, yet strangely enough, empathizing with her comes so natural.
I don’t know that I’ve ever met an artist as focused on her craft as Kiran Gandhi. Where other artists may either shy away from the lens (or worse, bask in its light), Kiran does neither. She hardly seems to notice that I’m there–her one and only focus is percussion. Read More »
