ZEBRA KATZ on reading: I’m wearing black patent-leather YSL high-tops, shorts by WoodWood and my “Read” hat because, as always, my outfit has gotta say “Read.” You know Zebra Katz is all about reading and all about saving America and promoting diversity. The last book I read? The last book I read was Harold Norse’s Memoirs Of A Bastard Angel. It takes place in New York City and has an introduction by James Baldwin himself. You’re either ’bout that or you’re not, but I am so ’bout that life.
|Puja Patel
On Sunday night Diplo's Mad Decent imprint came to Brooklyn's Williamsburg Park for the third stop of their annual label showcase and summer sweatfest that is the Mad Decent Block Party. First held as a one-off rager in front of their Philadelphia headquarters in 2008, the block parties were originally meant to promote the then-tiny label's roster of artists. Now, four years later, the block party has become a massive, all-ages, touring spectacle featuring performances from label's entire arsenal spanned out over shows in LA, Chicago, Toronto, Philadelphia, and New York. Sunday's lineup was by far the largest of the tour with a lineup that featured DJ sets from Major Lazer, Erol Alkan, and Lunice and live performances from Bonde do Rolê, Riff Raff, Zebra Katz and more. And while an unexpected downpour forced the camp to shut-down their stage suddenly, the thousands of attending revelers certainly got their fill of daytime partying regardless.
We arrived as Reptar was leaving stage to make way for Riff Raff. The rapper has become something of a walking meme and his performance only exaggerated the fact as he took the stage wearing a neon green tshirt and his signature, blinged-out Icee cup and logo-emblazoned chains. His live show fell a little flat following the bubbling cheer of the band before him; the constantly flailing inflated blow-up man propped in front of the stage might have had a stronger stage presence than the G's To Gents rapper. Riff Raff stumbled across his verses, occasionally revealing that he was lip-syncing to his own tracks. Lunice, however, picked up the energy and literally stomped through a DJ set of hype party rap -- Chief Keef, Waka Flocka, and 2Chainz -- and a blend of bass-heavy hip-hop instrumentals, including "Bugg'n" from his recently released TNGHT collab. New Jersey's Brick Bandit DJs Tim Dolla and Yahmean took on shirtless back-up duties, moshing alongside Lunice as he shuffled across stage and hyping the crowd up on the mic (i.e., "A low system, that's that shit we don't like. A loud system, that's that shit we do like").
Bonde do Rolê won the award for the most ludicrously brilliant props of the night. Amid their baile funk bombardment, where the duo of MCs Laura Taylor and Pedro D'Eyrot hair-flipped and bounced along to their screamy lyrics, the trio shot milk onto each other (and the moshpit) out of a dildo-outfited squirt gun. When they ran out, they took to pouring gallons of milk onto willing volunteers. And while the sweaty mayhem continued to ensue on stage as Erol Alkan dove into a frenetic house groove upon reaching the turntables, we got a chance to go behind the scenes and chat some of the day's highlights.
PAUL DEVRO and BOSCO DELREY assemble the Mad Decent taco. On a related note: We discovered that the name of Diplo's new management agency is "Teamwork."BOSCO DELREY on pre-MDBP music and his outfit: The last thing I was listening to before I came here was [checks iPod] 50 Cent's "Whattup Gangster." But do you want to know what my favorite new song is? It's Plastic Bertrand's "Ca Plane Pour Moi." What else? I'm wearing all black because it's hot and it's the best way to brutalize yourself during a hot concert. But mostly because it matches my hair. You always have to match your clothes with your hair. My friend Pamela Love is a great jewelry designer and took off her jewelry and put it on me because she said it made me look more interesting.RIFF RAFF's performance was met with polarizing reactions. While his fans cheered him on, others booed his lip-syncing flubs. MAD DECENT TACO ready to take the stage.LUNICE on his music and trap: I like to be the guy who keeps shit pure. You know all of this new music is dope as fuck but all of this shit is still rap music. I don't try to separate it too far, there's no point in that to me. For me, it's like, if you're going to rep something, rep all of hip-hop and not what's big right now. I'll play the fuck out of what's dope to me coming from a hip-hop angle. I'm coming from hip-hop culture and want to continue to push hip-hop culture. Not as a "trap dude" or a "swag dude" or whatever. I come from hip-hop culture and since I was a kid I've always been around hip-hop in general. I used to break dance! My crew in Montreal was 701 Squad. I used to be in competitions and stuff but, you know, after a while I stopped. I used to do everything that was involved with hip-hop. I used to do graffiti too. I still do it from time to time. Beatboxing too. [The people before us] pushed the culture like that and we're a new generation. Why not push it in the same way but just on a different level? All the people who are taking this kind of music and claiming it as their own new shit, that's wack to me. Let's make it bigger than that and rep hip-hop as our shared culture. That's how I present my shit.LUNICE broke away from the turntables to dance across stage more than once during his high-energy set while the day's hypemen - Brick Bandit DJ Tim Dolla and DJ Yahmean - egged him on in the background. (Photo by Nick Murray.)BONDE DO ROLE's Laura Taylor.MAJOR LAZER's Jillionaire and friend Cullen Stalin hydrate as Erol Alkan plays on the stage. Soon after, a sudden downpour forced the block party to end early. Unfortunately Major Lazer was unable to perform as a result.TOADALLY KROSSED OUT (Mad Decent label directors Derek Allen and Paul Devro) on new signees and their new EP. DEREK: What I'm most excited about coming up is this artist that I just signed to Mad Decent Jeffree's. His name is Pheo and he's a Southern Californian rapper from East of LA. He was just killing it early on; he had a bunch of awesome mixtapes, videos, and even a clothing brand but I heard about him earlier this year. We came together and picked some songs off his previous releases and did some new tunes and released the California Sex mixtape on Jeffree's. It was pretty cool because as soon as we had that done he was out with Juicy J for the Smoker's Club tour and now we're hoping he'll go out with Big K.R.I.T.. I can't say enough about him. PAUL: Toadally Krossed Out finally has a new EP coming out September 27th too. We have a weird autotuned rap song that we sing on, we have a weird moombahton song, and we have a hardstyle song that's kinda like Dirty South too. Basically we're keeping it weird.
