Miami hosted round 3 of the annual iii Points festival on October 9-11, 2015, and it was awesome. This is one of those festivals that gives you a dark and underground feel since it’s located in the graffiti covered art district known as Wynwood. The festival sets up multiple stages in warehouses, and trippy art installations are placed strategically around festival grounds. Most of the lighting was ominous and silhouetted back lights, so you couldn’t even tell who was performing unless you know the schedule; a very hip festival to say the least. We enjoyed a good amount of music over the 3 days, but we’ve narrowed down our top 5 musical highlights from the weekend.
5. SHLOHMO We’re suckers for hood-ass music and Shlohmo definitely played a lot of that. He opened with DJ Khaled’s “All I Do Is Win,” perfectly appropriate for Miami. His entire set was compiled of his own productions and reworks of hip hop tracks that Miami knows and loves. You could tell that he was really enjoying himself too, as a blend of dances and throwing bows let the crowd know he was feelin’ extra gangsta that night. His set was the perfect segue into Run the Jewels.
4. RUN THE JEWELS Killer Mike and El-P got the first surge of great crowd participation that we witnessed during the weekend. They carry some serious energy on stage which was a drastic contrast compared to the majority of DJs that performed previously during the weekend. You could also actually understand them, which is rare for a lot of hip hop acts live. An overall great performance by these two.
3. ALUNAGEORGE It’s always nice watching some instruments on stage when you’re at a mostly-electronic event. AlunaGeorge came out with a three piece setup consisting of Aluna, George, and a drummer. Technically AlunaGeorge is two people but they had a 3 piece band live, with Aluna singing and fronting the project. She performed her hit tracks “White Noise” and “You Know It” to a mad hype crowd. You know she’s doing something right when Disclosure and DJ Snake have both tapped her for vocals. She also performed the new song collab with Zhu called “Automatic,” which was really exciting to hear live even though Zhu wasn’t present.
2. Jay Electronica This guy is the real deal when it comes to hip hop. He came out stating loud and clear that he wasn’t there to “turn up.” He was there to “Spit Bars.” He did exactly that. He spit with power, clarity, and passion. He performed lots of versus a cappella and took requests from the crowd. Not only did he take crowd suggestions; he brought the whole crowd on stage. He gave one dude his chain to wear for saying “RIP J Dilla!”. He gave two local lyricists a chance to spit on stage in front of everyone (who both killed it) then proceeded to tell a story about how the first time he ever spit in front of people was because Mos Def called him on stage during a show and let him spit. An overall talented, compassionate, and powerful artist. Hats off to Jay Electronica.
1. Sango This guy has been a low key artist on our radar for a while due to his consistent productions and affiliation with Soulection. Sango brought the straight up fire to iii Points, which was a super relief considering the Ghostface and MF Doom show just before him was a flop.
Sango has the vibe that really gets everyone up and going. Miami reacted strongly to the hip hop-infused electronic tunes that Sango was playing out. He would drop in samples of classic tunes you forgot about, such as Aaliyah’s “Are You That Somebody,” mashed with his productions. It really hit the spot for prime-time on a Saturday night. Check this video clip we recorded during his set which was rather comical because he was really messing with the crowd on this one. Everyone goes wild.
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