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A quick claim to fame followed by a tragic, premature death.

The 20-year-old superstar, Pop Smoke, full of promise and potential, re-invigorated the New York Drill scene, leaving us to wonder what could have been.

Pop Smoke striking a pose for publicity.

2020 has to be one the worst years in recent memory. From the infamous coronavirus to the civil unrest throughout the country, this year has brought to light a wide range of problems. Among the host of terrible events that have occurred, a variety of influential musicians have passed away, one of which was the rising star, Pop Smoke. As quickly as Pop Smoke rose to fame, was as swiftly as he lost it all. The 20-year-old Brooklyn born hip-hop rapper, Pop Smoke (originally named Bashar Barakah Jackson), was on the verge of making an international breakthrough before his life was mercilessly taken away. On the 19th of February 2020, at around 4:30am, two masked men broke into his house in an attempted robbery but instead ended up fatally shooting Smoke and fleeing the scene. Smoke was quickly rushed to the closest hospital where he was pronounced dead after futile attempts at revival. Shock and anger ripped through the community that had grown so fond of his unique voice and compelling style of music. But how did a 20-year-old out of Brooklyn grow to have such an impact in such a short period of time?

Jackson was born on July 20, 1999 in New York City where he spent his early childhood in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn. To say that Jackson had a rough childhood would be an understatement; in eighth grade he was expelled for bringing a gun to school, shortly after he spent two years under house arrest for illegal possession of weapons. Though there were occasional highlights, an invisible force always seemed to prevent Smoke from achieving sustained success. For example, when he was 15, he won a basketball scholarship to a prep school in Philadelphia, however, was forced to decline the offer after being diagnosed with a heart murmur, a condition that can be exacerbating by playing sports. Despite his early struggles, Smoke’s unfaltering failures would soon lead to unimaginable fame in one of the most competitive and volatile industries.

Smoke only started playing around with the idea of music back in 2018, making his story even more unbelievable. His love for music stems from the time he spent in the studio during recording sessions with other well-established artists; these interactions fostered a deep-seated passion for the art and inspired him to embark on his own musical journey. During the recording sessions he started to attend more regularly, Smoke would secretly record his own vocals, immediately piquing the interest of some producers due to the unique nature of his voice. He began to work with 808Melo, a talented producer from the UK who would soon become one of his close friends and appear on numerous projects. On December 19, 2018, he released ‘MPR’ which created some buzz around his name in the Brooklyn area. The positive response he received urged him to continue fine-tuning his craft and creating music to share with the world. A month later, he followed up his debut single with another captivating piece called ‘Flexing,’ which ended up receiving over one hundred thousand views on YouTube within the first day of its release. With success stirring and the stars aligning, the journey seemed to be going much better than expected for the hopeful teenager, and after everything he had been through, this was a nothing short of extraordinary.

Smoke quickly befriended a producer, Rico Beats, who was well acquainted with the record executive for Victor Victor Worldwide, a subsidiary of Universal Music, known for cultivating the growth of young artists. After a quick introduction and brief interview, Smoke announced that he had signed with the record label and suddenly, everything seemed to have fallen in place, poising the young artist for international fame and triumph. In April 2019, Smoke released the lead single, ‘Welcome to the Party,’ of his debut mixtape— ‘Meet The Woo’ – foreshadowing the incredible celebratory party that would ensue. The record experienced tremendous amount of praise and recognition; the type of attention aspiring artists can only dream of achieving. It made its way around the world and caught the attention of heavyweights in the music industry such as Niki Minaj, Travis Scott, Quavo and many other globally acclaimed rappers, leading to some outstanding collaborations. Though the mixtape did not debut in the top 100 on the billboards, it was placed at 173, an impressive feat considering it was Smoke’s first commercial release. With people around the world echoing their unwavering support for the dynamic mixtape, Smoke and his label were confident that they could generate even more buzz with future releases. After taking a few months to refine and perfect his craft, Smoke announced the release of his second mixtape which would feature major artists such as Quavo, A Boogie wit da Hoodie, Fivio Foreign and Lil Tjay. What would be Smoke’s last project was released on the 7th of February 2020. Unlike his previous release, this mixtape not only cracked the top 100 but ended by debuting at 7 on the US billboards; giving Smoke the confidence to say that he had finally made it, despite his rough start and through all the adversity, he had achieved his biggest dream. Unfortunately, though this tale has elements prosperity and triumph interspersed throughout, it eventually ends in tragedy and heartbreak. Smoke never seemed to escape the demons that haunted him from a young age. Only a week after experiencing nationwide recognition and praise, Smoke was brutally murdered in his own home, putting an end to his short-lived, exceptionally successful life.

Smoke’s success was largely attributed to the connection he drew between the New York and London drill scenes, forming a captivating bond that had once been vilified by the media. Drill was originally a British rap sub-genre that emerged in London; it quickly gained popularity inspiring the creation of other regional scenes. It is characterized by dark, violent, nihilistic lyrical content and ominous trap-influenced beats. The lyrics tend to reflect life on the streets in a violent, gritty and realistic way. The rappers generally use a grim, deadpan delivery with vocals that are slathered in auto tune, a method that was commonly employed by Pop Smoke. Though the sub-genre shares many similarities with trap music, it is generally slower with a moderate tempo of 60 to 70 beats per minute. Drill promptly made its way to the US where a regional style emerged in the south side of Chicago in early 2010 and by 2018 New York had seen its own iteration. Smoke did not stick to the conventional characteristics of the New York Drill scene yet was still was considered one of the biggest artists for the sub-genre due to its audible influence. Smoke often wrote about his environment and ambitions, glamorizing drugs and sexualizing women but never referencing excessively violent events. All of which is a direct result of his rough childhood; only Pop Smoke would be capable of turning something dreadful into something poetic and musical for all to listen to. In an interview Smoke stated that he makes music for the young kids growing up in poverty, like he did.

Many fans and critics attributed the newfound popularity of New York Drill to the catchy melodies and autotuned vocals Pop Smoke offered in his mix tapes. Smoke transformed the sub-genre and put it back on the map, capturing an entirely new audience that never existed before. He was praised for his unique style and stand out musical personality, which distinguished him from other rap artists, ultimately allowing him to experience tremendous amounts of fame and recognition. It was his distinctive approach to the sub-genre that caught the attention of many major recording artists. Upon his untimely death, the music world appeared to let out a unifying cry that echoed the remorse and heartbreak everyone was feeling about the tragic event. Quavo referred to Pop Smoke as a ‘very talented, humble, respectful, and appreciative’ young kid in a post on Instagram. Similar types of statements were shared by artists of similar status, showing the immense amount of appreciation and respect the 20-year-old had cultivated during his short musical journey. Now, all we have is the incomplete legacy that Smoke left behind. We are left to wonder what could have been. To what extent would he transform the genre? How would he grow as an artist? So many pressing questions that will never be answered. 808Melo recounts what Smoke said to him during a studio session – He knew, I need to do something else, I need to be versatile. I’m trying to be that superstar – Smoke was the type of artist that transforms genres and creates trends. There seems to be no limits in sight for what Smoke could have achieved. After all, he was only in the music game for two years before he achieved some top charting songs, who knows where he would have been in the next ten years. To lose him at such a young age and so early on in his career is not only devastating to his friends and family but also to the entire music community.

 

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The Thousand Knives of Ryuichi Sakamoto

Driven by his immutable sense of wonder, the Japanese techno, film and avant-garde musical giant is an indefatigable innovator.

At first glance, the 68-year-old Ryuichi Sakamoto exudes a professorial gravitas. He speaks in a rasping, measured tenor, and carries himself with an urbane reserve. From behind his tortoiseshell glasses, a sense of mystery permeates his steady gaze. Yet this severity and stillness belie his relentless exploration and unceasing sense of wonder which has propelled this pianist, composer and sound artist to the forefront of techno, film and avant-garde music over the course of his 40-year long career. Sakamoto has attained a rare longevity as part of the vaunted circle of maestros who have achieved what so many artists can only aspire to: a lifetime of artistic evolution and excellence. 

The title of his first solo effort, the experimental electronica album The Thousand Knives of Ryuichi Sakamoto (1985), was aptly chosen, for Sakamoto wields his disparate musical identities with aplomb. The movie-going public may most immediately associate him with the elegiac main theme of Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence (1983), in which he nurses a tender, minimalist opening refrain into a crescendo of yearning and emotion. More recently, Sakamoto made waves as the Grammy-nominated composer for Iñárritu’s harrowing 2015 epic, The Revenant. His other collaborations with the renown director Bernado Bertolucci, The Sheltering Sky (1990) and Little Buddha (1993), also earned critical acclaim. The highly decorated composer has won a Grammy, an Academy Award, a BAFTA award, a Grand Bell Award and two Golden Globes, in addition to an honorary Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French Ministry of Culture. 

But before he was a greying, even-keeled film scorer, he was the heartthrob keyboardist and vocalist of the hyper-stylized, gleefully experimental and mischievously ironic electropop band, the three-piece Yellow Magic Orchestra (1978). The notoriously private Sakamoto found himself an unwilling celebrity, as YMO grew “bigger than the Beatles” in Japan. YMO was formed to satirise and celebrate the exotica genre popularised by American bandleaders Martin Denny and Les Baxter, subverting the Orientalist gaze to make exotica from a Japanese perspective. They were the original cyberpunks, the trailblazers for early hip hop, Japanese city pop, new wave and house, inspiring a legion of followers whose numbers include Joe Hisaishi of Studio Ghibli fame, hip-hop pioneer Afrikaa Bambaataa, Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones and Eric Clapton. Over eight albums, YMO built lush, technicolour soundscapes with an array of rapidly evolving musical technology and ideas, replete with aesthetically committed music videos. Their music ranged from the sugary kitsch of “Rydeen,” where jittery 8-bit synths outlined melodic ideas from traditional Japanese folk over bouncing syndrum rhythms, to the lush, radio-friendly, 80s synth funk of “You’ve Got To Help Yourself,” to the club-ready acid house hit “Nanga Def.” Till today, we still hear the afterimages of YMO’s path breaking innovation in music as disparate as British techno and J-Pop. 

Sakamoto’s “butterfly punk” aesthetic 

Sakamoto has built a formidable personal brand as a producer, collaborator and solo artist, deftly drawing from the classical, jazz, pop, avant-garde and ambient traditions. David Sylvian, frontman of British New-Romantic act Japan, and Talking Heads and King Crimson guitarist, Adrian Belew, feature in his string of high profile collaborations. He demonstrates facility in the full spectrum of mediums, composing for solo piano, trio, orchestra, opera, multimedia installation, video games and the 1992 Barcelona Olympics to boot, even acting in Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence and The Last Emperor.

A charged moment with Sakamoto as Captain Yonoi and David Bowie as Major Jack Celliers in Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence

The dizzying variety of his discography traces his relentless professional evolution, which stands testament to his unabating curiosity and genuine sense of wonder at the unknown. He describes himself in a 2019 interview as a “hungry man with lots of curiosities.” “I listen to all types of music and all types of music excite me,” he said in a 2020 radio interview. The classically-trained Sakamoto recounted how he had torn through and tired of the classical canon by the end of high school, entering National Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music for ethnomusicology and composition in hopes of making something new, informed by his diverse influences which ranged from Debussy to krautrock, with emerging musical technologies. 

Despite his mild-mannered conversational tone, Sakamoto does not shy away from taking controversial creative stances. He is a staunch individualist with a self-professed “strange personality” that resists being part of collectives preferring to work alone. Sakamoto rejects monozukuri, the widely revered and exoticised Japanese spirit of craftsmanship, arguing in a 2020 interview with the Financial Times that “true creativity is destructive… monozukuri is just polishing existing thinking” with a rare emotional pungence. He embraces destruction as crucial to creativity: in his radio interview he recounts how his second album B-2 Unit (1980) was born from the “urge to destroy the image I had with YMO” and one-time collaborator Aztec Camera describes Sakamoto as proactively building disruption into his workday, interrupting himself with ten minutes of house or hip hop “to corrupt what he knows… and to discover new things.” 

An expatriate musician writing for global audiences from his Manhattan apartment, Sakamoto is able to sit with cultural difference, describing “positive cultural shock” encountering punks in London in the 1980s in his Financial Times interview. “Shocking, but I really liked it,” he mused, modelling a non-judgemental curiosity and open-mindedness that would serve our multicultural societies well. Exploration is often seen as the province of the young, but Sakamoto has maintained this hunger for disruption, describing the radical, geometric musical approach of his long-time collaborator, alvo noto, with whom he toured in 2019, as “inspiring.”

Not all of Sakamoto’s exploration has landed well with critics. His 2000 performance at the Royal Albert Hall was panned by The Guardian as incomprehensible, a not uncommon criticism of experimental music. Sakamoto seems aware of this, astutely noting in his radio interview, “Just because it’s experimental doesn’t mean it’s good music.”  

The years have seen Sakamoto grow in his artistic maturity. He recalls how as a young upstart in film music, he wrote with single-minded focus on his music. He admitted that the poorer the film, the greater his incentive to write well to seize more of the spotlight. Now, he puts his music at the service of the film. Preferring an ambient, minimal approach in his recent work, Sakamoto seems to have put anthemic themes behind him. For Sakamoto the individualist, his prolific output of 24 soundtracks in the last 20 years represents a step out of his comfort zone, as he sees film music as a fundamentally collaborative act of musical translation. He confesses to the difficulty of satisfying multiple stakeholders in a 2016 interview, chuckling, “Literally every time I work on a film project, I say, this is it. This is it. No more soundtracks.” 

Sakamoto’s wide-ranging experimentation is complimented by his deep capacity for reflexive thought. He is keenly alive to the contradictions and idiosyncrasies of his creative pursuits. Rather than try to eke coherence out of his varied discography, he freely admits “When it comes to music I have a split personality,” comfortably straddling the division between analogue and digital, pop and experimental. Sakamoto counts the natural environment among his key inspirations. His 2017 biopic, Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda portrays his sensitivity to beauty and joyful experimentation with shots of him rambling through the forest and listening to the patter of rain with a bucket over his head, in search of stories and sounds for his work. “The world is full of sounds,” he insists. “We just don’t hear them as music.” Yet he holds that music is “unnatural.” In the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor disaster, reflecting on an intact piano he found washed up by the tsunami, he saw parallels between nuclear power plants and pianos, both manipulating natural material into something unnatural. “If you think about it, the piano is a very unnatural instrument that was born from the Industrial Revolution,” Sakamoto puts forth in his radio interview. “There is a large plate of steel inside it… (and) about ten tonnes of force in the piano (from the strings).” The piano, ravaged by the tsunami, was not falling out of tune, as much as its warped wood and metal was trying to return to its natural state, the disaster having liberated it from the artificial imposition of mankind’s understanding of tonality. Music was akin to an abuse of nature. But for all this, Sakamoto declares that he needs to make music. “That’s the true desire. It’s contradictory, but somehow I have to survive through that.” 

Sakamoto’s concern with the natural and the unnatural goes beyond abstruse intellectual preoccupation. It’s a deeply felt, personal dilemma. Sakamoto was diagnosed with Stage III oropharyngeal cancer in 2014, which went into remission after a period of intensive radiotherapy, an excruciating period during which he could not work or even listen to music. He saw a connection between nature, the mangled piano and his own broken body, he shared with Slant Magazine in 2018. “Getting a disease is a process of nature. A tsunami and an earthquake are processes of nature. Being damaged by the force of nature is just another process.” This brought him solace but also doubt, he disclosed in his radio interview, if it was worth taking such extreme measures to prolong his life, to defy the course of nature. “But my desire to stay alive to make more music ended up being stronger.” 

Sakamoto examining a piano washed up by the deadly 2011 tsunami in Coda

In recent years, mortality has undoubtedly become a key creative focus. Pre-empting critics, he candidly offers in a 2018 Guardian interview, “It’s not sad. I just meditate about it.” In Coda he chases a “perpetual sound,” a musical symbol of immorality. Sakamoto may come across as cerebral, but his art, perhaps now more than ever, is grounded in his tender humanity. His latest solo effort, async (2017), is awash with haunting contemplation, the melancholy orchestral instrumentals and sampled textures coalescing into a fragile meditation on mortality. Through the gloom, he offers us the bittersweet, luminous rays of resolution – he quotes poet Arseny Tarkovsky on “Life, Life,” singer David Sylvian intoning “Life is a wonder of wonders, and to wonder / I dedicate myself.”

Sakamoto’s understated humour is a counterpoint to his somber reflections. His austere countenance, once set in motion in convivial conversation, lights up into a twinkling smile, suffused with a gentle warmth and hidden, almost childlike mirth. His humour tends towards wry, self-effacing impishness. Describing his upbringing as the son of an editor, he recounts in his 2018 Guardian interview, “(many) wannabe writers and novelists came to the house and there was a lot of drinking until the morning, and lots of books in the house, which we had to avoid so the piles didn’t collapse on us. Very cultural!” He reminisced about another episode in London, 1979, where he saw a trendy couple in a club dancing to his song, The End of Asia. “I just thought, ‘Wow! They are so fashionable and cool … but we were the ones that made them dance … so, wow, we must be really cool too!’” he recalled with glee in 2009. 

Sakamoto during a lighthearted moment at the 2019 Singapore International Festival of Arts 

Sakamoto has aged gracefully into a musical elder statesman, stepping out of his habitual reticence to employ his celebrity in service of anti-nuclear and copyright law advocacy, amongst other causes. Sakamoto spearheaded the international awareness campaign, Stop Rokkasho, to demand the closure of the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant in 2006 and was at the forefront of the anti-nuclear demonstrations after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor meltdown. In 2009, in an exclusive with The Guardian, he argued that copyright law was antiquated for the information age and a return to “tribal” attitudes towards music. 

Even after a prolific 40 years, Sakamoto is clearly not done yet. My only quibble with his biopic is that its title, coda, feels premature. His work since his return after his cancer went into remission does not read like a final triumphant recapitulation of his achievements, but the beginning of a new chapter, informed by new creative concerns. He is currently working on a new solo record and an opera, to be announced in 2021. 

Sakamoto is more than the man behind Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence. Throughout a back catalog spanning genres, collaborators and continents, Sakamoto has relentlessly reinvented himself. His artistic metamorphosis is born of an unsentimental, radical willingness to challenge his status quo, but also of his earnest reflection, his willingness to wade into what is most keenly felt and vital, and most of all, his immutable sense of wonder. Sakamoto is not ready to draw his musical odyssey to a close, declaring, “I’m seeking something new, something unknown to my ear.” 

 

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A mixed bag of Baybeats

A Cornellian at home surveys the Singaporean music scene

Many Singaporeans listen to a cosmopolitan mix of music, yet struggle to sing along to local musicians. Events like Baybeats, one of Singapore’s biggest local music festivals, are a sorely needed chance to spotlight our homegrown talent. 

Due to Covid-19, the nine acts of Baybeats Unplugged have been uprooted from their usual location, the Esplanade, Singapore’s premier performance location which resembles an overturned half of a durian, the fifteen minute acoustic sets posted instead on the event Facebook page. Annette Lee, the first act, has perfectly serviceable vocals, but her lyrics are at once bland and oversaturated with saccharine pep. The seasonal metaphor in “Spring Will Always Come” quickly comes unmoored as she warbles how “it’s pretty cold” in the winter of life while I melt in tropical Singapore’s 95F heat.

I want to like Mannequins, a rock band with a 90s sound and goofy humour. But their anthems can’t achieve liftoff and I wince as their frontman unleashes a gem of tautology, “I know I think I thought I knew,” clinching the dubious honour of the festival’s most insipid lyric. 

At this point, I am ready to give up on Baybeats. But the Facebook algorithm gods do me a solid, shepherding me towards Bakers in Space, a refreshingly experimental surprise landing in the ballpark of indie-rock and psychedelia. The chromatic action in “Citrus” strings tension throughout the song with hovering, disoriented harmonies, perfectly describing a bewildering love affair. The post-chorus offers tantalising nuggets of resolution, only to flicker back into confusion as it alternates between two chords. Their second piece, “Autumn,” is mired in self reflection. Lead vocal Eugene Soh pulls the audience into a swirl of doubt, the harmony brooding. He concludes, “my mind is going,” followed by an instrumental breakdown recalling the innocence of a lullaby. The addictive bass line and crunchy guitar riffs on their third piece, “Mindfield,” affirm this is a band with an abundance of ideas who bear repeated listening. 

 

Finally, the long-awaited headline act. Baybeats park their best act in the literal basement, the regionally acclaimed Charlie Lim performing in the Esplanade’s garage. He opens with a personal favourite, “Choices.” His voice simmers with tension and heartache, papered over by a gentle calm as he begins a late-night conversation with an old lover, coaxing “keep your eyes on me darling, I’m not a magic trick.” He lets a plaintive edge bleed into the second verse, imploring “I can take complication, if I can comprehend.” Deftly walking the line between plainspoken and poetic, he unravels what it means to nurse love through differences. He employs the same articulate honesty and understated delivery in “Least of You,” a more forthrightly pining ballad. His final song, “Pedestal,” is the mischievous counterpoint to the previous two, a sarcastic, bluesy anti-love song subverting the trope of elevating lovers. He showcases his versatility, taking his voice a notch more theatrical and playing adroitly with rhythm, even swinging easily into a guitar solo. 

I came into Baybeats looking to survey local music. But what is Singaporean music supposed to sound like? The debate is not new. Singapore’s periodic spasms of identity crisis are particularly afflicted by self-doubt, owing to our short independent history, multicultural constitution and colonial hang-ups, among other factors. It’s telling that one of our most visceral manifestations of identity, Singlish, a creole of English, Malay and Chinese dialects, is seen as out of place in most public and professional settings, explaining the dissonance between the performer’s quasi-American accented singing and speaking voices. 

It is unreasonable to throw the full burden of resolving this interminable debate on local artists. At campus music events, I’ve never asked performers to prove their Cornellian or American credentials. Yet, I held Baybeats to a higher standard of crafting a unique, culturally-specific cool without falling into tacky cliches, on top of music-making’s routine complexity. Perhaps, as musicians already know and I am belatedly realising, rather than trying to make good Singaporean music, it is enough to make good music, unabashed of who we are. 

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Big Gigantic: A Tiny Miniscule Attempt at a COVID-19 Concert

 

Big Gigantic – Artists

Dominic Lalli (saxophonist) and Jeremy Salken (drummer) make up the technofunk duo, Big Gigantic

As I sat in my common room, alone at 2 AM on a Saturday night, watching the 2020 Bonnaroo live stream (a virtual version of the popular Tennessee festival) and trying to mimic the ambiance of a concert with my roommates’ projector complemented by our fairy lights in strobe mode, I was only further reminded of the strangeness of watching a virtual concert. I was no fool, I knew there was no way to replicate a concert by watching a YouTube live stream, no matter how large the screen. Concerts are about the crowd you’re with, the friends you make, and the ability to be present with an artist whom you love. The headliners of the evening, Big Gigantic, are known for their larger-than-life beat drops and unique combination of jazz and EDM elements. The set, which consisted of the jazzy, electropop duo playing for an hour in front of a green screen, was disingenuous and lackluster, delivering a disappointing experience to both fans and Bonnaroo diehards alike.

The failure of Big Gigantic’s set began with the duo’s lack of engagement with the music. Sure, they bopped their heads to their music and Dominic Lalli, on saxophone, did a few little jigs with his feet, but the two of them were so stationary that I felt awkward trying to dance to their music, which on its own is perfectly danceable. Had the duo been playing jazz or folk, I could have excused their stagnation, but as funky, electropop musicians, their performance requires at least a shimmy. Even Jeremy Salken, though restricted by his drum set, could have delivered a little head roll. The duo’s stale performance brought down my energy level and was ill-fitting when paired with their upbeat music.

The visual elements of Big Gigantic’s performance also screamed “we are in a studio and playing this music for an invisible audience.” Various brightly colored kaleidoscopic and neon backgrounds rotated throughout the set and a Vaseline-coated glow arose from behind the two men as they played their instruments, building a wall between the real and the fabricated. Their attempt to replicate a stage experience was so frustratingly different from watching a band playing amongst visual effects on a stage, on screens around them. If the duo had embraced the intimate setting and tailored their performance to it, their set would have worked. Avid music fans know that study sessions and NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts can highlight artists’ skills through a cozy atmosphere. In Big Gigantic’s set, however, the intense graphics and the green screen only served as a reminder to me that I was in a dorm room, watching a live stream.

Just when I thought “maybe I can envision myself at a concert if I just close my eyes,” Lalli would speak into his poor-quality microphone and draw attention to the fact that the entire experience was virtual. His voice was muffled and radio-like, nothing like the echoing speech of a performer at a stadium. What made it notably worse was when he tried to get a call and response going with his non-existent audience, gesturing to the camera every time viewers were supposed to echo him. If the duo had embraced their virtual space and adapted a set to suit the circumstances, there would be no awkward moments of open-ended calls and responses. CloZee, another EDM artist who had preceded the duo with her set, did a fantastic job tailoring her performance to the virtual sphere. Omitting herself from the screen, CloZee featured psychedelic visuals that changed color and speed based on the music she was performing. By embracing her inability to replicate a stage experience, she allowed attendees to immerse themselves in the artistic vision of her music. The most of CloZee that appeared was her shadow during parts of the set, allowing the focus to be on her music. Had Big Gigantic given their audience to have a chance to be immersed in the music, I may have imagined myself at a concert, with the booming bass and tantalizing treble of their songs. But as soon as Lalli decided to interject, the guise that Bonnaroo was intending to achieve completely crumbled.

While it is uplifting to see artists and music festivals trying to create free virtual concerts during a pandemic, the execution of these events is too often fabricated and condescending. People attend concerts for more than flashy lights and acknowledgment from musicians, we go so that we can hear our favorite artists deliver their creations directly to us. We don’t need all the bells and whistles, just two musicians, instruments in hand, pouring their soulful sounds into our open ears.