The Come Up Show is a hip-hop website, and admittedly OSHEAGA isn't a hip-hop festival. It's more like a dog's breakfast for genre benders, for people who like to try on all sorts of sounds and behaviours, but given the TCUS readership I've collected a series of beat-centric acts from Day 2 to review here, namely Dam-Funk, Lupe Fiasco, Ratatat, and Bassnectar.
Before I get into the thick of it, I should quickly disclose a bias or two which spring from the fact that festivals, like OSHEAGA, are uniquely dis-isolated listening environments. In other words, the average attendee's experiences, moods, and are not primarily controlled by a sole artist, but rather a collective of artists that may, but more likely may not be, musically related. A Hardcore Punk band plays next to an Electro/Dub tent, a Rap-Rock band plays next to an World Indie duo. It doesn't take a genius to deduce that
all sorts of music fans are jam packed into one huge space at these types of venues, which is different than say going to, say, a Foreign Exchange show where everyone knows Phonte's history with Lil Brother, the 9th Wonder beef and what Nicolay has to do with Okay Player, not to mention that you and everyone else in the crowd likely wore Triple 5 Soul in 2003 and have been to Future Shop to price BASSSSSSSSS woofers and Dr. Dre headsets. Naw, OSHEAGA is not a music bubble laden with comfort music. It's a festival of mingling where you can try other sound worlds and cultures you may not be so familiar with, musics you may not necessarily go out of your way to pay for otherwise.
So while I limit my review to these beat-hop acts, I do it only out of the sake of economics and the fact that the next show starts in 2 hours and I still need to get this shit written and hop on the overpacked (and underwater) metro to get down to the island, because to block out everything but one kind of music at a festival like this misses the point of festivals like this altogether. The point, is to intermingle. The point is to exercise the lazy, flabby synapses in your brain that double kicks, glitch stops, light shows, funk vamps, and ELECTRIC GUITARS will ignite and the samples and screws and chops and truncations of hip-hop will not. We all know but sometimes don't like to admit that there is nutritious music beyond that made from turntables and microphones. I guess all this is a long way of explaining what a more succinct musical doctor could have put in a sentence: Remember to eat your vegetables, kids.
Click below to read the full review and to see the pics.
