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With rap music expanding its horizons and opening itself to new and exciting sounds, Childish Gambino continues to make hip hop fans happy with the delivery of his new mixtape entitled Royalty. Gambino not only raps, but also produces the majority of his beats himself. Also, he has enlisted a team of greats to be featured on Royalty including: RZA, Ghostface Killah, Danny Brown, Bun B, and even Tina Fey. (She does a little monologue-rap at the end of “Real Estate”.) To me, the most exciting feature of them all was Beck. There are two songs produced by Beck on Royalty, one on which he also raps over. Check it out for yourself.

In case you aren’t familiar with Childish Gambino, his real name is Donald Glover. Glover’s an actor, comedian, writer and now an accomplished rapper/producer. He was on Community, you know, that one show with Chevy Chase. He was also a writer for 30 Rock, which is where he got his hook-up with Tina Fey. Keep an eye out for Gambino’s future projects.

Download Royalty for free here.

By Damian Medina | San Diego Ambassador | @Damian_MWL | Beat-Play & Music Without Labels, LLC

Phone rings. Radiohead/ Rolling Stone pool party? Yes. What do you even say to a question like that as you wake up after 2 days of complete drunken haze and lack of sleep with your legs ready to kick your own ass for making yourself stand for hours on end. You go. You carry on, chug a warm beer by your bedside and go. A quick mid-day dip in the now 90 degree pool, cool by the 111 degree temp on the outside. I paid for a hotel room for the sheer fact that it had a shower and I don’t think it was until day 3 when I actually took advantage of this magical invention. Knowing the day ahead may or may not be epic we popped a bottle of very expensive beer imported from Boston. Threw on my jorts and flip flops and ran out the door. Off to downtown Palm Springs about 17 miles away from Coachella and the lovely town of Indio for the Rolling Stone/ Radiohead party.

What a friggin maze that hotel was and honestly I don’t even remember the name but the banner with the Rolling Stone logo led me to believe I was at least close. After 20 minutes of walking around this joint and asking about 11 people where the party was we finally wrapped around the back of the hotel to the secondary pool area. Who knew? Ping pong tables, free beer, a photo booth, a full band’s worth of instruments set up, free beer, a place to make your own sandals and t-shirts and coozies for your, you guessed it, free beer. I guess there is one good and bad thing about Coachella. The corporate nature and rampant corporate advertising in and around the festival is out there in the open slapping you in the face but if they hand me a free delicious New Belgium Fat Tire Beer (in stores now ) after they slap me, my face is going to be very red. I sauntered here and perused there. I tried to look somewhat like I belonged. It was pretty quiet and had just begun. My bud and I started fooling around with the instruments and got our picture taken way to many times in the photo booth. There was a guy painting a new VW beetle, you know standard party activities.

Looking around I was clearly out of my element, but taking it all in and enjoying myself I sat back and relaxed. A familiar face walked by. Brian Bell from the band Weezer. Now I have a pretty good relation ship with Weezer, my band covers ‘the Blue Album in its entirety so in my mind we are basically best friends and I think it’s safe to say I’m a pretty big fan. Living in LA I have seen and met some celebs, but they can all take a hike compared to any member of Weezer. I think if Coachella stopped at this point and I was forced to go home I would have gladly done so. Meeting Brain Bell was definitely a highlight, icing on the cake. Maybe not quite as cool as when Radiohead showed up to the same party and band members started taking turns DJing. I did not have the balls to approach any of the Radiohead guys. Thom Yorke is notorious for acting weird around fans and fan appreciation. Why? I have no idea, but when Saylor approached him to let him know we enjoyed the show the night before he looked like he was scared out of his mind. He almost called the Karma Police on us. OHHHHHHH…. stupid.

We left. There was music to listen to and a 90′s West Coast rapper to resurrect.

If you’ve been following along with my Coachella blogs parking at Coachella sucks. They lock you in and it’s at least a 30 minute walk to any stage. We hustled and failed to get there before Fitz and The Tantrum’s played the final chords of their hit “Money-Grabber.” We walked back stage for a cold water. Hydration was not very high on the list for the first half of the day. Beer was cheaper. By this time it was almost 6 pm. Time flies when you have no sense of it what so ever and your phone is dead, go figure. We made our way to the Sahara tent to see Gotye. If you haven’t heard that damn song “Somebody That I Used To Know” you live under a rock. It’s catchy and unavoidable. We scouted spots up front in the guest/ VIP pit. Just a bad idea in general to go to a show in a tent that needed to be on a main stage just for the sheer fact that he easily out drew his tent by about double the capacity.

The normally half empty VIP pit was bursting. We had to get out there for sanity sake and health reason. We moved backstage. Terrible view, terrible sound, but at least we could breathe. He played through just about everything I wanted to hear. There are better songs on his new record “Making Mirrors” than that hit. He sounds unreal and exactly like the record and his band was really tight. I thoroughly enjoyed his show and I’m sad now that I hadn’t found about him sooner to avoid being labeled a band wagoner because of one song that is loved by the masses. I really want to see him again when he comes back to LA for a proper indoor show or even up at the Greek. That would be awesome.

There is one part of the Coachella experience that everyone needs at least 10 minutes of. I’m speaking of course about the DJ tent. Famous DJs gather and spin the best dance music fancy samplers and electronics can fart out. I for one don’t understand how watching someone stand behind a table and press buttons is entertaining (maybe it’s the drugs these young kids are on), but this tent is easily the most consistently crowded tent in all of Coachella. I had to see what it was all about. Calvin Harris was up so we headed next door after Gotye was finished. I dug my way through the crowd. In the 20 minutes we were in there these are my thoughts for this blog as noted in my iphone from almost two weeks ago:

Loud, Cool Lights, high? nope annoyed, Crowded, Same song played 4 times in a row?, smells like farts?, sweat, shoot me…

I don’t really know my thought process at that moment but from the looks of it it wasn’t pleasant. After the sheer relief to feel actual oxygen in my lungs again outside the tent we made our way across the festival stopping in and viewing some of the art exhibits missed over the course of the weekend.

We stopped by the rave/ burning man/how many drugs are these people on? mini stage and quickly exited almost faster than we did Calvin Harris. It was time for At The Drive In, a band I wasn’t familiar with. We sat back. They sounded great after all these years apart. Omar Rodriguez-Lopez was a treat to see since I am an avid Mars Volta fan and you can definitely hear those early influences he brought to At the Drive In Come Through in Mars Volta.

Your all going to hate me for what comes next. When the time came for Snoop and Dre. I couldn’t do it any more. I couldn’t take the crowds, the heat, the bros. I am somewhat responsible in my personal and work life and I had to work the next day. My friends and I opted out of the guest/ VIP pit for a more distant viewing of the last set of the weekend. I have no pictures, because that’s how far away we were. I have never seen more people gathered and focused on one event in my whole life. This is after attending headlining sets at Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Coachella in years past, Phish festivals, and giant arena shows. Never have I seen a sea of people like the one massed for Dr. Dre and Snoop. Snoop and Dre took the stage to a “powered by Beats by Dr. Dre” advertisement. Really? You couldn’t spare us one night without having the damn $300 headphones that aren’t worth $300 shoved in our faces. They look cool yes, they sound like shit on a stick flying through the air. Go buy Sony MDR 7506′s if you want to hear the good stuff, trust me. Deep breaths and strike one against Mr. Dre. At 10:40 they took the stage to my surprise, right on time. They ripped into what was one of the best, hit filled sets of the entire weekend. So good in fact I immediately forgave the Dr. for opening his set with an advertisement. Here is the set list complete with special guests.

The Next Episode
Kush
Gin N Juice
Deep Cover
Nuthin’ But A “G” Thang
Ain’t No Fun (If The Homies Can’t Have None) (Nate Dogg Tribute)
I Wanna Rock
Jump Around (House of Pain cover)
Drop It Like It’s Hot
In The Air of The Night (Phil Collins cover)
Young Wild And Free (with Wiz Khalifa)
The Recipe (with Kendrick Lamar)
What Up Gangsta (with 50 Cent)
P.I.M.P (with 50 Cent)
In The Club (with 50 Cent)
Xxplosive (Snippet)
Lady Luck
California Love
Hail Mary/2 Of Amerikaz Most Wanted (Tupac Hologram)
I Need a Doctor (with Eminem)
Forgot About Dre (with Eminem)
‘Till I Collapse (with Eminem)
Who Am I? (What’s My Name?)
Still D.R.E.

Before I touch on the hologram I have to say that 50 Cent was terrible. He didn’t belong within a mile of that stage. I get the relationship with Eminem and co. but for him to come out and do his three terrible hits during a set filled with some of hip hops greatest songs was just stupid and a waste of time. No one gave a shit. It was a waste of time and I would have rather just left the stage empty for ten minutes as they prepared the hologram. People have been asking what the hologram looked like. It was creepy. It was appropriate and awe inspiring as well. I really liked how they did it. It was essentially a projection on a thin clear sheet of glass when looked at from the front it looked 3-d and relatively real. I think it was one of the coolest things I have ever seen at a concert. The only thing that irked me was no one said RIP or acknowledged that Tupac was even dead. They just said “Give it up for Tupac!”. That was weird.

We split after the hologram. The last thing I wanted was to sit in an hour of parking lot traffic before making the two hour drive back to LA starting at 1am. We ran out during Eminem. Jetting out of the parking lot without another car in sight was a festival highlight for me. Everyone was still parked with all eyes focused to see what Dr. Dre and Snoop would do next to end the festival I was relieved and happy to avoid the masses I heard ‘Gin and Juice’, ‘The Next Episode’ and ‘California Love’ I was happy.

Driving through the night I kept asking myself the same questions over and over. What just happened? Would I do it again? The only two answers I could come up with were, I have no idea and in a heartbeat.

By: Steve Rippin | Beat-Play Ambassador Los Angeles | @stevewithMWL|Music Without Labels & Beat-Play, LLC

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