An age-old question among activists and the media is how to grab an audience’s attention and hold it. In a society accustomed to twitter feeds, blog hosting, sound bites and news that serves to either placate viewers with entertainment or alarm them beyond reason, knowing how to engage people on serious issues can be quite the challenge.
In order to reach a culture that is over saturated with sensationalism and new technology, one thing though, is for sure– you have to be creative.
Many people would rather be mindlessly entertained than learn about depressing news. So why not use entertainment to inform the masses? Inspired to combine music and news-room journalism, two European expatriates living in Australia combined their powers of lyrically creative brilliance, comical acting and historical and political knowledge to form the eccentric character Robert Foster– host of Rap News.
Beyonce and Jay-Z have been in town, chilling at the St Regis in the Presidential Suite. Definitely a Burner friendly hotel, for those who can afford it – $30,000 per night for J, B, and their child who was born with a Burner name: Blue Ivy.
Their home boy Kanye West, Burner Name “Yeezus” is also in town. He was performing at Outside Lands in Golden Gate Park, home to many celebrations of San Francisco’s music and culture over the years. Last year the crowd wept as Paul McCartney sang “Yesterday”, this year the crowd wept when Kanye turned the Auto-Tune off. Hear for yourself:
Is this all a prelude to the mighty trinity making a pilgrimage into Black Rock this year? It would be happening in the footsteps of trendsetter P.Diddy’s playa storming visit last year, and Apple’s $3.2 billion acquisition of Dr Dre (alleged secret mastermind behind Burning Man) and Jimmy Iovine and their Beats. They will be competing against Google’s Burner founders, who want more Temporary Autonomous Zones like Burning Man, and paid $3.2 billion for a Nest.
Bring on more hiphop at Burning Man, says Burners.Me. Kanye, though, doesn’t seem to have gone over quite so well with the discerning San Francisco crowd.
There was a mellow beginning and a repeatedly “Bloody” end to the first day of the lucky seventh edition of Outside Lands, the festival so beloved by San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park that organizers Another Planet have a contract to host it there until at least 2021. Don’t worry, though, it wasn’t real blood — just an attempt by Kanye West to extract some from the crowd by playing his current favorite song by himself over and over.
8:17 PM: As the sun completely makes way for a beautiful moon, this year’s main advancement in flower crown technology reveals itself: Some of these suckers light up now.
8:36 PM: Kanye West cuts off his “Clique” in order to address members of the press who he says look for something negative to write about him, “instead of embracing the moment, embracing the time, the era, the season that they’re living in — called Yeezy season.” Yeezon.
8:49 PM: Yeezus is in control now, and he stops the song “Power” dead in its tracks. “I like that song and all,” he notes, taking off his couture face mask, “but I want to play a little of the last song now.” He instructs the crowd to make “circles” so people can mosh when the beat to “Blood On The Leaves” drops. “This ain’t no radio shit,” he says. “This ain’t no concierge, maitre d’ music, trying to sound as smooth as possible.”
9:00 PM: As we’re all toasting to the scumbags and assholes on “Runaway,” a man in a wheelchair briefly stands up, grinning widely.
9:10 PM: “At the Yeezy show, everyone is a star,” Kanye croons through Auto-tune. “I promote self-confidence! If you’re a friend of mine, you’re really just a friend of yourself!”
9:20 PM: Snippets early hits come fast and furious, a blur that “All Falls Down” under “All of The Lights.”
9:50 PM:“Blood On The Leaves” is back again to close the show, along with renewed orders to make more mosh pit circles. Kanye adores when the beat drops on this track so much that he pulls it back to release it for the third and final time, leaving the stage in foggy silence. He’ll be a tough act to follow tomorrow, but plenty of artists are ready to go for it.
P.Diddy came to Burning Man this year, and rocked it. He threatened to come back with a real n___ga sound system. We shall see…personally, I doubt it.In the mean time, here’s Rabbit, aka Dr Dre’s tea boy, aka world’s greatest rapper Eminem…I’m hoping to hear these kind of tracks at Burning Man this year. See second video if you think you know/don’t know about rapper skillz…[dub step]
Yes…that’s dope. However, it seems lame when compared to this shizzeh. Eminem, and Dr Dre, please come to Burning Man, we want you guys not pee dido…
An age-old question among activists and the media is how to grab an audience’s attention and hold it. In a society accustomed to twitter feeds, blog hosting, sound bites and news that serves to either placate viewers with entertainment or alarm them beyond reason, knowing how to engage people on serious issues can be quite the challenge.
