Tag: trap

Séance: Ghostemane & Gatecreeper at the Roxy

Rob Shepyer November 19, 2018

A prediction I made a year ago seems to be coming more true every year and that’s that trap music will be the foundation of music’s future, in this case it’ll be heavy metal which trap will reinvent. I’m talking about trap metal, trap punk, trap-core, emo-trap and industrial trap. All these newborn styles are being spearheaded by a handful of young men at the beginning of their twenties, notably the man(e) who sold out the Roxy, Echo, and 1720 on a three-day tour bender to conquer Los Angeles, that man being Ghostemane. related content: Anarchy’s Monarch: Scarlxrd At The Roxy One might think that trap would have trouble being embraced by the true metal bands its competing against but with support from death metal heavyweights Gatecreeper, it would seem metalheads are fans of trap and trap-heads are fans of metal. Or maybe both are just fancy crazy…. related content: Recontamination: Dying Fetus At The Regent As always, Gatecreeper destroyed the Roxy, just as they do any venue they have the chance to play. They are clearly the best young death metal band around, having opened for every landmark American of the genre with a sound that is undeniably classic

Bastard Rap: Lil Ugly Mane and Bastard Noise at The Locker Room

Rob Shepyer August 22, 2018

Well what do ya know… it looks like Garden Grove has a lot more going for it than forever being relegated to Sublime references. The quaint Orange County town has a new outdoor/indoor venue in Garden Amphitheater and the smaller, Locker Room within it. The Amphitheater is hosting two amazing hardcore festivals in 2018 so having scoped out the space, I can say for a fact these shows will be completely insane. related content: 1Fest-Los Angeles at Los Globos: Noise As Music As Force Is Farce The Locker Room, which is decorated with yellow lockers along the back of the stage, would host Lil Ugly Mane’s Orange County show on a tour that he billed with diverse bands for every date. Mane assembled trap, death rock, and legendary vocalist of Man is the Bastard, Eric Wood, who with an array of machines, creates sonic insanity under the banner: Bastard Noise. The first band to play the evening was a crusty hip hop artist known as Death Rattle. They performed as a duo consisting of a mad-dog vocalist that duel wields microphones, one filtered, one not, and a live drummer. Opening his set with the command that all nazis get the fuck

Anarchy’s Monarch: Scarlxrd at The Roxy

Rob Shepyer July 27, 2018

Arcing over the pond in a desperate fire bombing attack on American soil, the UK’s Scarlxrd landed at the Roxy Theatre to light Los Angeles up for his first American show. With only him and his DJ performing, it was almost like a showcase for us foreigners, to see what secret weapon the trap game had up its sleeves. Or, to use an even more ridiculous comparison, it was as if Goldenvoice used a cheat code to select the secret character on the menu screen and we were facing Noob Saibot for the evening. related content: Sleaford Mods Hit The Echoplex On Last Date Of First Ever U.S. Tour For those confused by my ramblings, Scarlxrd is a young, trap artist who’s sound and image have captured young people’s imagination and has garnered seals of approval from mainstream American taste-making institutions such as Noisy and Goldenvoice. What differentiates him from other artists in the game though, is the undisputed aggression and anger in his music which most trap artists only try to give the impression they can summon through their image. If trap and hardcore punk are on two opposite poles of a spectrum, Scarlxrd represents a point on that

It Ain’t a Cult, it’s a Trap: Tyla Yaweh and SAINt JHN at The Roxy

Rob Shepyer May 23, 2018

Hip hop shows in 2018 are the most purely fun concerts of any genre causing a ruckus in LA. With rowdy DJs, blunt smoke, wild dance, and beautiful women everywhere, anyone that talks down about this form of music surely hasn’t experienced it live. related content: Nature World Night Out At The Regent: Building Bridges Between Hardcore And Hip Hop The night’s artists, vocalizing under the Not A Cult tour’s banner, were Tyla Yaweh and SAINt JHN. Tyla, a new acquisition of London Entertainment, is an artist ready to make everyone his biggest fan in 2018. How on Earth can he do this? Well, he demonstrated every behavior he would need to capture your adoration and imagination at this Roxy performance. First: Charisma. Tyla’s charisma is perhaps his most noticeable attribute, with a big smile and the ability to use dance and body language to to tell the story. Tyla moves with the lucidity and confidence of someone that risked it all for a dream and succeeded. During one song that featured the lyrics “she told me she really good at dancin’ like Michael Jackson“, Tyla busted out moves that dazzled the audience, dance moves people rarely see from hip

Nature World Night Out At The Regent: Building Bridges Between Hardcore and Hip Hop

Rob Shepyer March 3, 2018

Nature World Night Out is musical proof that there is more variation within the groups we separate ourselves into than between those groups. On the surface, Hardcore music and Hip Hop may seem on opposite poles of the musical spectrum but after a little bit of inspection, you realize they both have similar bounce, fashion, and both originated from the streets. Whether you’re black, brown, or white; male or female, there were artists in the Hardcore or Rap categories performing at this festival for you to project yourself onto. I remember my first Nature World Night Out, two years ago back when it was a one night event at Union Nightclub with Trash Talk and Soulja Boy co-headlining. The night was also my introduction to Antwon, Hip Hop’s ambassador to Hardcore and one of the festival organizers. Needless to say, that first NWNO was amazing and to this day, I still regret missing the second NWNO with Cam’ron… these guys booked Cam’ron to play on the same stage as Jesus Piece and No Warning for God’s sakes. related content: Trash Talk, Ratking, and Pangea: Slam Dance 101 At The Echoplex This year’s third annual installment migrated downtown to the Regent

Rolling Loud SoCal 2017 Doses the Youth with the Latest Opiate of the Masses

Rob Shepyer December 23, 2017

Whether you follow and enjoy hip hop or not, you cannot live in 2017 without encountering the sounds of “Trap”, hip hop’s newest anarchist misfit offspring and perhaps its most polarizing subgenre. As a punk and metalhead my whole life, a year ago, I would’ve never predicted I would go to a festival like Rolling Loud SoCal 2017 but now, as a music critic, I don’t think I’d have a credible understanding of modern music without partaking in the spiked Trap kool-aid. Trap music began in the South, the word “Trap” referring to the physical location of a drug deal. Thus, rappers that had drug dealer alter egos became known as trap rappers. The sound’s origins are debatable but what is definite is that it came out of Atlanta, Georgia with ties to the Dungeon, a bare bones recording studio in a basement that has bred artists like Outkast and Future. T.I. claims he invented Trap, others can hear a definite link beginning with Gucci Mane. Then there’s other important proto-trap artists like Soulja Boy and Lil B. But it is perhaps Migos and Future that are the most stolen from artists, with Future creating what is now known as Mumble-rap with songs

Millennial Matchmaking: Gary Numan & Ugly God At The Observatory

Rob Shepyer November 22, 2017

Two artists from very different times and scenes played two different shows on the same Observatory stage. Gary Numan and Ugly God- rarely do you get that much musical diversity out of a night and I was interested to see how my brain would react to absorbing the contrast. Anyone that knows me would think I was more interested in seeing Numan and though I’m a fan, I came to see what all this trap hype was about. For you see, music has become for me a divining rod which one can use to understand where society is going and if Trap’s popularity is any indication, I think we’ll all be celebrating ourselves stupid in times to come. The Gary Numan show was first with Me Not You as his only support on the bill. They’re a band from New York City that played an amazing and cathartic set with electronic post-punk vibes that kept building and building, pulling the tears out of your eyes while cramming the noise down your ears. They reminded me a bit of Health but with female vocals and a pinch of mellow, alternative vibes comparable to older bands like The Breeders or The Cranberries or

A free show with Lil B, Trash Talk and ho99o9 at The Regent: What could go wrong?

Danny Baraz December 27, 2014

Last week, a flyer started appearing online about a mysterious show at a mysterious location. I first saw it on Lee Spielman’s Instagram account. It listed three bands- Ho99o9, Trash Talk and Lil B and an RSVP link from event organizers and sponsors, UNIF clothing and HAM on Everything. That RSVP link displayed ominously and intriguingly, inviting all to show up early to an undisclosed location. What could go wrong? A line started forming around the Regent Theater in Downtown Los Angeles almost as soon as the location was announced. By the time I got there at 9pm, there was a snake of people, 20 deep, that wrapped around a square block of Main Street, around 4th, down to Los Angeles street and up to 5th street and back up to Main. The VIP line was also about 200 deep. For an hour, understaffed security wouldn’t let anybody in as the crowd swelled and the line kept getting longer and longer. I fought and burrowed my way through the middle to land on the coattails of young Mr Fucktard as he and his crew penetrated the threshold of the doors to the Regent Theater. There is no way I would’ve

ASAP Mob Show in Hollywood Comes Close to Riot in the Streets

Danny Baraz December 2, 2014

This was the 30th and final day of Red Bull Sound Select’s, 30 Days in L.A. It marks the end of November and the start of the holiday season. Day 1 seemed like it was yesterday and much of the month was a blur as I covered 17 shows and the rest of the Janky Smooth crew covered the other nights. Red Bull really bit off a lot but they delivered a great bill on almost every night of the month. Walking up to the Hollywood Palladium, I witnessed a line of people trying to get into the ASAP Mob show that stretched from Argyle, onto sunset and around El Centro. Sunset was closed to traffic due to an earlier Xmas parade. There was something in the air and it wasn’t Xmas cheer. Things feel different. I don’t feel that unity that happens this time of year that makes us all forget our differences for this short period of time. There is a struggle going on in this country right now between the Norman Rockwell painting that projects an image of this country that doesn’t exist anymore and the reality of a decaying infrastructure, disappearing middle class, militarization of police