Do you feel that? It’s the temperature here in the Northeast….Summer outdoor festival season! This year, I kicked it off with one of my favorite annual events – The Roots Picnic down on the Philly festival pier. Plenty of surprises, great times and performances galore; click below to check out my recap of the event and an extensive gallery of pictures I captured:
The picnic, for me, was sort of a last minute event. After attending a Philly Tourism promo event last week with Black Thought and ?uestlove, I realized my previous plans for the weekend had changed and I could attend. Huge shout to HHU friend Rachel and Philly 360 for making it happen. Three years and counting and still one of my favorite annual events.
I think The Roots Picnic is great for a lot of reasons, but I think outdoor festivals, in general, are interesting because they bring a lot of different “types” of people together to celebrate one thing: music. Young, old, girls, guys, were all out dancing and going crazy for their favorites artists alongside each other. I like that music has the ability to bring people together, despite whether I, personally, like the literal music itself.
After taking the train from NYC, I wound up getting there shortly after the gates opened. Unfortunately, the artists I was there to capture for HHU didn’t go on for a few hours, but I was thoroughly entertained by personality/DJ/artist Amanda Diva taking control of the music and MCing.
I don’t rock my nice kicks to concerts because they wind up getting screwed up, but the famedSupreme SB’s made an appearance. Saw a lot of Jordan heat out there, including a gang of people wearing True Blue III’s that had just released that morning. Yup. I’m still noticing the kick game.
For the sake of sticking with “The Hip Hop Update,” I won’t really talk about the non-hip hop performances, but this guy Ariel Pink (and his band) had me dying man. Trippy music. The lead singer was rolling on the ground with an unlit cigarette and a beer, screaming in to the microphone. That PCP is a helluva drug…
The first hip hop performance of the day came from Alabama’s Yelawolf, who I’ve seen perform three times before – every time more hyped than the next.
Hip hop with a rock mentality. Yelawolf was climbing on speakers, jumping around and crowd surfing in one of the most intense performances I’ve seen up close. The energy, in turn, gets a HUGE response from the crowd. MC’s, take notes.
Philly 2-1-5 up in this! Yelawolf embraced the City of Brotherly Love by rocking an old school Phillies hat that someone from the crowd gave him.
All in all, another high-intensity performance from Yelawolf that completely owned the crowd. Loving it. His set wasn’t that long, for the sake of the concert schedule, but he performed some of the best tracks off of Trunk Muzik as well as his collaboration with Gucci Mane. Until next time, Yela.
After Yela, I headed back outside to the main stage to catch Wiz Khalifa do his thing. Everybody still having a great time at The Roots Picnic!
One thing I instantly realized when I was walking around the pier was the presence of “Taylor Gang” apparel, Pitt Pirates hates, Chuck Taylors, Most Dope shirts, and other pieces ofRostrum Records flare. Wiz Khalifa & Mac Miller fans were HEAVY at The Roots Picnic. Pittsburgh had officially invaded Philly and Wiz & Mac delivered.
One thing I noticed with Wiz right away was his overall confidence & comfort on the stage. I’ve seen him two times prior to this event at small venues, but I never saw him having so much fun on stage as he did on Saturday evening. While he’s a relative newcomer to the MAINSTREAM, with “Black & Yellow” and “Roll Up,” he handled his performance like a veteran. After all, he’s been perfecting his craft since 2006. I’ve been listening since 2007?s Grow Season mixtape.
Young Wizzle’s got the moves. Ha
Congrats to Mr. Khalifa. He held the honor of having the best special guest cameos of the night. As an ode to Philly, he brought out both Young Chris and Neef aka the Young Gunz to perform “No Better Love” for the audience. Great to see Neef and Chris back together, doing their thing.
Big up to Young Chris for doing his independent thing nowadays. He’s been doing it big on the net with a number of high profile mixtapes and music videos.
Wait! It didn’t stop there. Beanie Sigel comes walking out like a boss, puffing his cig. He performed a track before his other former Roc boy came out…
EARLY. Freeway and Beans had the crowd put their hands up!
With that great Philly surprise, Wiz resumed his set alongside Chevy Woods as they continued to kill everything from his Cabin Fever to Rolling Papers projects. This is one my favorite shots I took of Wiz from his performance. Wiz Khalifa and the Rostrum Records team killed it, with one other artist on their roster up next…
…up and coming MC Mac Miller! After the success of K.I.D.S. and Best Day Ever, Mac Miller has earned a ravenous fan base who are loyal to his every words. As an artist, how can you not be amazed by that kind of a following?
While the crowd was mixed, he had the young females going INSANE. He had the biggest reaction of the day by far, with girls steady trying to climb over the barricades just to touch the man. Wow.
This was my first time seeing Mac live and he and his crew, including his hype man/friendTreeJay, really knew how to work a crowd. Thoroughly impressed as Mac went rapid fire on the microphone, not missing a beat.
Wiz and Mac collectively had two of the most hyped up performances of the day, so much respect to their teams for getting them to where they’re at today. I’ve messed with Wiz and Artie from Rostrum for a while now, so I’m happy that they’ve earned their place in the industry. Mac and Wiz are just getting started…
If you know anything about me, then you know that the finale to The Roots Picnic was my favorite performance of the event. A lot of people love Pac or Biggie as their favorite MC’s of all time, but my favorite MC of all time is Black Thought of The Roots. He has a charisma about his music that gives me the chills and The Roots crew is always evolving their sound with thought provoking music – in my opinion, at least.
The Roots crew hit the stage with full force, performing classics from Things Fall Apart andilladelph Halflife. I don’t think I’ve ever seen (or remember) The Roots perform “Concerto of the Desperado” before, so that was great.
?uestlove on the drums, as always.
The Roots brought out their Money Making Jam Boy crew member Truck North to kick a verse.
Black Thought and The Roots rocking out.
Peedi Crakk in the building! He performed “Get Busy” alongside Dice Raw and The Roots.
Soon enough, it was Black Thought’s time to take the backseat as Nas steered the last leg of the concert. Two of hip hop’s best face to face on the same stage. Amazing.
Whose world is this? Nas performed classics from illmatic all the way up to his recent material. One thing I noticed is that Nasir lost his breath while performing “1 Mic.” Either that, or he forget lyrics…but the performance was strange as he left chunks of words and phrases out of the verses.
I managed to snag a closeup of Nas’ old Kelis tattoo while he was performing. Nah, not anymore. Kelis’ topless body now embraces the head of a lion.
I had to leave toward the second part of Nas’ set, when he started getting in to his most recent material, but I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed his performance…especially with The Roots backing him. Nas even managed to get some extremely early promo in for his upcoming album,Life is Good, by having the crowd chant, well, “Life is Good.”
What a day! The 2011 Roots Picnic was a great way to kick off Summer festival season in style. Some great up and comers, mixed in with some hip hop legends. Third year in a row and it’s still one of the best annual concerts I’ve ever been too. Definitely check it out next year if you’ve never been.
HYPEEATER.com is your #1 source for Hip-Hop celebrity news, photos, exclusive music videos, interviews and all the latest in the world of hip hop and R&B music.
