Red Bull Sound Select: See Who’s Playing
The Red Bull Sound Select is an live music series sponsored by the wing-dispensing energy drink company it’s named for, in an effort to promote new music and artists in emerging genres and styles. The concert series happens all over the United States and presents lineups consisting of up-and-coming artists alongside national names. This Saturday, September 27th, the Sound Select series, curated for this show by Jump Magazine, brings a varied group of artists, each known for their own unique “spin” on hip-hop, to Underground Arts. The lineup consists of instrumental hip-hop producing and djing icon RJD2, slick-lipped Philly boy and “GOLD”-affiliated rapper Sugar Tongue Slim, and the Philly minimal electro-funk/soul/jazz/hip-hop/so-many-other-things duo known as Marian Hall.
RJD2
Veteran hip-hop producer and DJ RJD2 will be headlining the event. The Ohio-native vinyl-spinner has been based in Philly for a while now, has worked previously with artists like Aaron Livingston of Son Little in Icebird as well as having appeared on The Roots’ albums “The Tipping Point” and “Undun.” Just last year, RJD2 released his ninth studio album, More Is Than Isn’t, in which he continued to push the boundaries of electronic hip-hop with his staggering musicality, and including jazz, funk, soul, and R&B influences. Staying loyal to the techniques he picked up in 1993 as a fledgling DJ, RJD2 will continue to exclusively spin vinyl and mix and scratch the only way he knows how to: flawlessly.
Sugar Tongue Slim
Atlanta-born but Philadelphia-raised, silver-lipped rapper Sugar Tongue Slim returns to bring his prophetic rhymes to a hometown stage. A rapper of a different cut, STS shrugs the typical hubris and ego-boosting that comes with the materialist culture associated with much of modern mainstream hip-hop. Instead, he simply writes what he thinks and feels regardless of how it may be perceived, perhaps best illustrated in his track “Why Can’t I Say It?” from his summer-release EP We Can Talk Politics & World Affairs, in which he questions the exclusivity in use of certain words in art based solely on race. STS has opened sold-out shows for artists like 50 Cent, Big Sean, The Roots, and B.O.B. to name a few. He’s a member of Money Making Jam Boys, a crew led by Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter of The Roots, leads his own crew known as “GOLD” (Gentlemen of Leisure and Development), and has worked with famous producers like Ski Beatz, The Alchemist, and Will Power. In 2011, he was named one of NPR’s favorite new artists while his mixtape The Illustrious was named among NPR’s 50 favorite releases of 2011. Without a doubt, Sugar Tongue Slim is guaranteed to present a performance of asolute “GOLD”.
Marian Hill
Boasting a style and musicality almost exclusive to themselves, Philadelphians Jeremy Lloyd and Samantha Gongol bring their almost unidentifiable-by-genre sound to the Sound Select as the half-electronic half-live team Marian Hill. Self-described as “Ella Fitzgerald meets Drake”, the duo has managed to blend the rending sub and straight high-register patterns of trap music with the swing and laid-back ambiance of minimal smooth jazz through a slick combination of live instruments and digital production to create an almost entirely new feel that really doesn’t have a name yet. Whatever it’s called, their sound is unique, new, and definitely not going to stay hidden in Philadelphia for long.