I can’t believe it’s that time of year again.
Not only does tomorrow mark 8 days until my birthday, it’s also my second year attending MIA in Philly!
I’m traveling down tomorrow morning for a girls’ trip with my best friend to check out the festivities. I will definitely update this post post-festival with all my thoughts on Saturday’s festivities. Can’t lie, I only feel skeptic about the lineup (which I will explain in full later), but I am trying to keep an open mind.
UPDATE:
I had a great time in Philly, but it was exactly what I expected. Let me explain–
We hit minimal traffic getting down to Philly and the first stop was Mad 4 (Mex) on Penn’s campus for one of my favorite meals — margaritas, crispy wings, and waffle fries; highly recommended. We got to the festival a bit late (due to metered parking), so we ended up missing DJ Cassidy, but arrived just in time from Chromeo, on.
Last year, what I loved about the festival was the near-perfect curation which was enhanced by the good vibes of festival-goers. The festival featured action-packed performances from every genre and there were enough mainstream artists to cater to the very diverse crowd. Every 10 feet, I ran into people from all facets of my life — my hometown, college friends, even my coworkers.
This year, I found that my fun came mostly from the silly moments my best friend and I had interacting with the strangers we met throughout the day.
I consider myself a generalist when it comes to music — I like a little bit of everything with strong ties to R&B and pop — but I only knew two people on the bill for the day (J. Cole and Kanye); that didn’t have to be a bad thing, but I ended up being unimpressed with the other acts I saw.
One pleasant surprise was Chromeo. Though I don’t remember not one song, the duo had everyone grooving. (At one point my best friend and I ballroom danced with people we’d met 2 minutes before.)
J. Cole brought a lot of energy to his set and I loved the live band, but I was ready to kick things into high gear and his material just isn’t made for a festival-like turn up, no matter how much he tried. 2 Chainz on the other hand… I digress.
Now ‘Ye I may have slept on. We were so exhausted by the end of the night (grannies) that we chose to stay on the periphery of the crowd and therefore I don’t think we got the full experience. We were off-put by his set-list, which was mostly material from the new album (-__-) for the first 30-40 minutes.
Nonetheless, I haven’t seen Kanye perform by himself since his first album (?) so I’m glad I was able to hear my first Kanye rant.
“What we do culturally is not a joke.” – Kanye West
(I saved that in my phone.)
This year I only saw, at most, 2 people that I knew; despite being in a city with a 40+% black population, the crowd wasn’t diverse at all.
Selfish of me, but my bottom line is this — MIA planning committee, stick to one city and invest your resources in getting one bomb, diverse lineup. It also wouldn’t hurt to have 1+ female artists… like, really.
Two funny moments–
1. I met June Ambrose! I had just saw her tweet about the festival when my best friend spotted her milling around the ground level of the VIP section. After fangirling for 10 minutes, my friend finally made her way over to ask for a picture and June was more than willing. As I was taking the picture, her daughter ran up for the ill photobomb. June was definitely on #rockmom duty!
2.We were watching a performance, when my best friend said to me, “that girl looks exactly like Elle Varner, but it’s not her.” Just as I turned around the girl turned her back to me, so we kept trying to discreetly angle ourselves to see her face. She started to walk away (at a brisk pace), so we ended up tailing her like creepers. Eventually, we gave up because my best friend was convinced it wasn’t her. Turns out, it was her, ha!
More pics below:
Read my tips after attending MIA last year here.