Lollapalooza 2015: Our Top Takeaways [Event Review]

Lollapalooza-2015

As with any music festival, after Lollapalooza is over, it always takes us a few days to digest everything and snap back to reality. For locals, the festival serves as a three day escape within our own city. For outsiders, it provides them with a completely unique way to experience Chicago. The magic of Lollapalooza is simply unmatched, and despite a weather scare on the final day, Lollapalooza 2015 turned out to be just as memorable as years past. On the next few pages we’ve broken down some of our lasting impressions from Lolla.

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[Hip-Hop] Mick Jenkins – Get Up Get Down (Prod. by Stefan Ponce & THEMpeople)

MICK JENKINS
Get Up Get Down [Prod. by Stefan Ponce & ThemPeople]

Mick Jenkins broke through in a big way last year with the release of his widely acclaimed mixtape, The Water[s]. Keeping consistent with the aquatic themes, the Chitown native has finally announced his highly anticipated follow-up, titled Wave[s], will be dropping on August 21st. Along with the announcement comes the latest single from the project, “Get Up Get Down” which will follows previous releases like “P’s & Q’s” and “Alchemy“.

Urging listeners to “get up, get out, get down,” this fresh tune is a bit more laid-back and loose compared to Mick’s typical thought-provoking material, though a lot of that credit can be given to producer Stefan Ponce who’s best known for crafting hit records for the likes of Childish GambinoVic Mensa and Chance The Rapper. Along with Ponce, Wave[s] also boasts production from Kaytranada, THEMpeople, Lee Bannon and Mulatto, and includes features from Saba, Sean Deaux and The Mind. You can stream the new joint above and check out the tracklist below after the jump.

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[Hip-Hop] 119 Productions & THE FDC – THE C.S.S. (Chicago Sight N’ Sound)

Chicago Sight N’ Sound is an ambitious endeavor between 119 Productions & The FDC meant to showcase the city’s best and brightest up-and-comers. Plenty of familiar faces are scattered throughout the two-part project, including Mick Jenkins, Lucki Eck$, Saba, The O’My’s, Kami De Chukwu, Jean Deaux, Ibn Inglor, Smoko Ono, Jarred AG, Dally Auston, Martin $ky and many more. The C.S.S. takes advantage of some of these more well established names to introduce listeners to some newer talent they may have never even heard of, which is essentially is the true goal of this undertaking. In fact, some of the project’s best moments come from artists who may have never crossed your radar before.

Along with the mixtapes which make up the “Sound” portion of the project, there’s also a visual aspect which can be found on 119’s official website. After checking out the full scope of The C.S.S, it’s pretty clear that the teams over at 119 Productions and The FDC poured their heart and soul into making this project possible, and it’s not a stretch to say this is one of the most important projects to come out of the Chi all year, if only to show that the city can really unite together as one.

We’ve selected a few of our favorites from both mixtapes below, but we encourage you to check them out in their entirety over at the Chicago Sight N’ Sound SoundCloud page.

Part 1

’SABA PIVOT – SABILLION (Prod. By A Billion Young)’
’THE O’MY’S X ENCYCLOPEDIA BROWN – THE BLUNT (Prod. The O’My’s + C. Lang)’
’PSALM ONE – TIMELESS (Prod. Benny Nice)’
’JARRED AG
MUHFUCKA (Prod. Smoko Ono)’
’DALLY AUSTON – FOOD N’ LIQUOR (Produced By Boathouse)’

 

Part 2

’MICK JENKINS – TIME (Prod. OnGaud)’
’VIA ROSA / theMIND / NETHERFRIENDS – SIGNS (Produced By Netherfriends)’
’JEAN DEAUX / NOSIDAM – UNCOND. LOVE (Prod. AmbI Lyrics)’
’鷹SÄGESHINTENDŌ鷹 – UCHIHA SEJI (Prod. 鷹SÄGESHINTENDŌ鷹)’
’PIVOT GANG – FUZZY SLIPPERS (Prod. By Saba)’
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[Hip-Hop] Mick Jenkins – P’s & Q’s (prod. Kaytranada)

MICK JENKINS
P's & Q's [Prod. by Kaytranada]

Amidst an always overcrowded landscape of emcees, Mick Jenkins has consistently stood out as a messiah of sorts for the rap game. The Chicago emcee’s debut mixtape, The Water(s), was an incredibly cohesive and thoughtful piece of work that displayed a level of lyrical depth years beyond his peers. So, it’s little surprise that when he teams up with one of the most forward-thinking producers in the game, Kaytranada, the results are mind-blowing. Their last collab, “The Rain,” was one of the best hip-hop tracks of last year.

Yesterday, Jenkins presented his latest single “P’s & Q’s” continuing his evolution into a thought-leader to be reckoned with. Kaytranada crafts an instrumental that, although still maintains his future bounce style, is driven by a smooth looping guitar lick. As always, Jenkins sticks to his motifs spitting bars that play off the letters of the song’s title. It’s not just a gimmick, though, Mick truly ties the narrative together spewing knowledge about being genuine and true to yourself while engulfed by deterrents.

The accompanying visuals, directed by Nathan Smith, couldn’t be a better fit for the message of the song as Mick stays calm amidst a chaotic whirlwind that surrounds him. That sense of inner peace through disaster seems to be a theme found through out Jenkins music and we’d highly recommend dropping everything you’re doing to watch the moving video in fullscreen below. Jenkins follow-up to The Water(s) is coming sooner than you think and it’s definitely on the top of our list of hip-hop projects to look out for.

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