2023 SXSW Recap: The Future of Music and Keynotes (Part Two)

Tuesday:

After a shower and a nice eight hours on a couch, I made it back to downtown Austin for another day of festivities.

RZA Speaks

Though he was a bucket list artist to see perform, RZA was at SXSW to view his acting appearance in the new A24 movie Problemista and do a featured session. Here, RZA talked about his creative process show running the Hulu original Wu-Tang: An American Saga. He answered the audience’s questions and discussed the future of music. It was insightful and genuinely awesome to see live.

After a free lunch break at the University of Arizona Wonder House, I went back to ACL Live to catch the first night of the Rolling Stone Future of Music show where I made friends with Madeline and Sophia from the radio station KXSC at the barricade.

spill tab

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spill tab was the first to open up the night with her alt pop-sound. Being only a minor fan of hers, she was a great opening act. Her interaction with the crowd and general openness as a performer created a unique show Crème Brûlée was great to hear live. Plus I got my hands on a spill tab setlist which I gave to my new friends.

Baby Rose

After a quick stage change, Baby Rose took the stage with her confident and intimate neo-soul R&B sound. It was a stark contrast from the loud and fun performance by spill tab, but she had a great voice live, especially accompanied by a live guitarist backing her up. My favorite cut from her performance was I Won’t Tell.

midwxst

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I was very excited to see midwxst. At only 19 years old, midwxst has become one of the faces of rage and digicore with the autotune-heavy energy he brings in all his tracks. I was grateful that the Rolling Stone shows were badge-priority, but open to the public for free because most of the badge-people were either older or media which was not necessarily the crowd midwxst was trying to appeal to, but the wristband attendees, and the free attendees brought the energy to the performance. Though it took a while for the crowd to get going, by the final ten minutes, there was a mosh pit opening and midwxst hopped over the barricade to perform with a fan. At the start, he didn’t seem fully confident in his own performing abilities, but by the end, the crowd was alive and he matched their energy.

Saba

The amount of influence Care for Me had over my high school life is immense. To see Saba walk on stage and smile at me rapping along to every word during his 45-minute set was such an amazing moment I wouldn’t trade for anything else. Bouncing between sentimental moments like Photosynthesis and Broken Girls to closing out with tracks like Survivor’s Guilt and Life showed how much Saba has grown over his last 2 albums being able to showcase a plethora of styles. Hearing Calligraphy live is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Plus, I also got a Saba setlist. I am blessed

JID

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To close out Future of Music’s first night JID came out to a rowdy and excited crowd. JID was on tour with Smino and flew out of Canada just to perform at SXSW. He had just performed in Austin a month prior, so he was excited to return to the crowd. Bouncing between cuts off of his new album The Forever Story and Dreamvile like Crack Sandwich and Ma Boy tracks with older songs from DiCaprio 2 and The Never Story like Never and Workin Out, JID’s hour-long set felt like mere moments with the energy he brought to the table. I FaceTime’d my buddy Drew while he was at a Portland Trail Blazers game and let him enjoy a portion of Never. I genuinely think he’s one of the best rappers in the scene at the moment and he has a crazy future in the genre.

I am not a rumor guy, but when I hear something I want to believe, I take it as fact. Seeing boygenius do a pop-up show at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport had me envious of the people that got to catch them live. The rumor mill said they would do another show at Central Presbyterian Church as a part of the Distance Management showcase (the same management that managers Julien Baker), so after the JID performance, I hauled over to the church with hope that the bad information I got could be true. I received false info, and so did half the people in attendance. I ran into my good friend Lauren who was enjoying the music. However…

Thao

Thao was a fantastic act to catch even if it was for 10 minutes. Her cover of Talking Heads’ Road to Nowhere (one of my favorite songs ever) enlightened the crowd so much and the church was glowing with smiling faces to close out the Distance Management performance.

The Orielles (again)

Following this show, Lauren and I went to the Dance To The Radio showcase with hopes of grabbing the limited vinyl, but instead, I got to see the wonderful Orielles again who showed up one more time.

Villano Antillano

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To close my Tuesday, I saw Villano Antillano at the request of another buddy at Parish. She is a transgender Puerto Rican rapper, and she knows how to perform. The crowd was electric, waving Puerto Rican flags the entire performance as she bounced around the stage not missing a single beat. Lauren was in love. I was in love. I cannot recommend her enough. She can spit and she can control a crowd. She is awesome. Though she barely said a single sentence in English throughout the entire performance. She addressed the crowd in perfect English before walking off the stage saying “And we are doing this in Texas, where trans lives matter” which received a massive uproar.

Lauren and I stumbled our way over to the Voodoo Doughnut shop for a late-night snack before going home. It was great to see and party with a great friend from college during such a surreal week of shows to be grounded back in reality and just have a great time. We tried to Lime scooter our way back to my car, but my Lime died. People that know me know I am an advocate against Lime scooters after being run into by one just last fall, so I was already eating my words. It was genuinely embarrassing for me…

Wednesday:

I started feeling the fatigue of South By the morning of Wednesday. I took a long hot shower and cut myself with a razor, but we move. I was running late, but I made it to the Austin Convention Center just in time to catch two back-to-back keynotes.

New Order Keynote

Though hearing about how New Order has grown as a band and how they transitioned from Joy Division into New Order is nothing new, it was funny to see Bernard Sumner comment on his thoughts on K-Pop.

Killer Mike Keynote

Not only was the Killer Mike Keynote an interview of Killer Mike, Marcus J. Moore, one of my favorite writers from the New York Times but also hosted it. Killer Mike discussed his upbringing and what is going into his first solo project in 11 years while taking a brief break from new music with El-P as Run the Jewels. It was an awesome discussion between the minds.

Asian Glow

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I’m not the biggest Asian Glow or Parannoul fan, but as an active user of RateYourMusic, I knew I had to catch Asian Glow’s first live performance outside of South Korea. He seemed a little shy on the stage, but he crushed it. The crowd looked like a bunch of stereotypical Bladee fans. I think this was confirmed after Asian Glow performed his cover of The Flag is Raised and people lost their minds. It was a great performance and I hope he comes back to the States another time to give his fans overseas some attention. The demand is definitely there and he is genuinely a great live performer. After his show, he tweeted out

for the next time im really hoping for a show that wouldn’t cost like a thousand for tix

— Gyn (@audinjeee01) March 22, 2023

so maybe there is hope for a small US tour in the future.

After the show, I sprinted to the Everything R&B showcase to see Ojerime perform. While I waited I met Hierba, a DJ at KVRX who was just as excited to see Ojerime. I love making college radio friends. As it turns out, Ojerime was not even in the state of Texas, so instead I got to see the next few acts I was excited to see.

Kadeem Tyrell

Kadeem Tyrell opened up the show with his silky voice and made his stance as one of the best newcomers in the UK R&B scene. His set was brief, but he gave it all his heart. April 25th is one of those great R&B songs.

Shae’s Universe

Shae’s Universe took the stage next. I discovered her from her feature on Alpha Place by Knucks. With Kadeem and her back-to-back, it was proof the UK has such a great grasp on the R&B scene and is so consistent. Her cover of D’Angelo’s Lady was to die for.

Yazmin Lacey

Only a few blocks away was the Jazz re:freshed Outernational where Jazz and Soul were combined and the beautifully lovely Yazmin Lacey who was accompanied by a full band and a fantastic voice, played a short set. She was magnificent and the band really elevated her voice. It genuinely felt like I was in a jazz club

After Yazmin, Hierba and I parted ways as I got to try P. Terry’s (mini review: it’s cool). After that, I went to the Def Jam event to catch SwaVay.

SwaVay

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SwaVay is one of those rap newcomers like Armani White that I hope to see gain more traction. I discovered him from Elevate off the Spider-Verse soundtrack and LAZY by Destin Conrad. His solo material is pretty great, and I am excited to see what his next project has in store. Hearing Kick Door live was pretty sick.

Beatenberg

Up next was the South Africa showcase by Leafy Outlook. I got to catch the back half of Beatenberg, who sounded very similar to Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig. The songs I really enjoyed were Ithaca and Rafael. Another great SXSW discovery.

Blxckie

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I found Blxckie from the song Big Time Sh’lappa, and I was very excited to see him on the SXSW roster. He didn’t perform that track during his set, but he went through most of his R&B material with 4LUV which was cool nonetheless. He did close out with the banger Guns & Roses which was awesome.

I wanted to catch Jadakis perform, but the Def Jam showcase was moving ahead of schedule, so by the time Blxckie ended, the Def Jam show was piling out. I pivoted to another band I was excited to see.

Sports Team

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I didn’t realize how big Sports Team was in the UK because it seemed like every British person who was attending SXSW for work made sure to make a pit stop at a Sports Team show to end their night. They were one of the funniest performances during SXSW. Alex Rice stopped the show and commented on the SXSW banner addressing it as one of the more corporate music festivals. He said, “I went to the Slack booth earlier today and I asked them how can Slack increase my productivity as a band?” They also took time to talk about how much of a godsend Buc-ee’s is. Hearing M5, Here’s The Thing, and The Game live made me feel complete.

We also have a Sports Team liner in the system that airs during automation hours. It has been there for ages so it is cool to see them perform our liner song in person.