From the desert to the city:
Young World IV
From a merciless California desert, we arrived in Brooklyn, New York to cover MIKE’s Young World IV festival.
WORDS BY Christopher Buchanan and Dalton Feldhut
IMAGES BY Benjamin Uribe, Johnathan Arellano, Khalil Hardy and Michael Mayes
I awoke on the viciously humid morning of July 13 with a hellish crick in my neck from sleeping on the quiet floor of an apartment in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Three friends and I rented the place until summer's-end while I slaved away on a business-writing job. What a sick, goddamned bore that had been. But still, we had all come from far west for various, more fulfilling purposes: work, leisure, camaraderie or sheer personal development — California, as opportunistic it is, couldn’t satisfy each of these cravings in such a way that New York very well could. And so, from that merciless desert of opportunity, we arrived.
We eventually resolved that there must be an end-goal to this summer excursion — some product much bigger than ourselves that we could give back to the city for its hospitality. New York had no shortage of eccentricity worth being studied; each of our rolodexes produced an obscure figure or group that warranted thoughtful consideration… Some fell through, others never came to fruition and an even less significant fraction couldn’t pique our interest enough for a fair chance. However, there was one thread which wove itself through each of our potential interviewees, documentary subjects and characters of visceral intrigue — an event that would wrangle all of these possibilities together under one cruel summer sun… MIKE’s Young World IV.
A couple weeks before the big day, we had arranged which responsibilities would be who’s. After some thoughtful consideration, we decided on a photobook to capture the feelings of the pseudo-festival in stills: halted moments that could provide the viewer with a broad glimpse into the real deal — portraits that could turn hours into mere seconds of observation.
Unfortunately, I was born without the artistic eye that my roommates were naturally graced with; Ben and Johnathan would therefore be responsible for photography, video and design, which would ultimately make up the bulk of our project. Ben, being a producer of some acclaim himself, would also be our in-man to some of the artistic brains we’d have to pick for quotes and varied wisdoms. By grace of a power higher than ourselves, we also had MKYFM — a budding producer with a larger-than-life personality, an attractive force for artistically-inclined individuals and fresh off the release of his work MHZ. With him he’d bring invaluable legitimacy and insight. The remaining workhorses, Dalton and I, would be responsible for research and editorial portions. The plan was set in place, and proper execution was vital; an event like Young World deserved acute and detailed attention.
The morning of the show began with steaming showers, cascading droplets over the windows that obstructed our view of the Halal corner store across from our living room window. The heat was indomitable… sneaking its way through each crevice of the home and lying low to the floor, where I slept below MKYFM to accommodate his overnight stay. I woke up in a stressed sweat, mulling over what I’d ask and who I’d ask it to… There was only so much research you could do to prepare for the many anomalous personalities that would occupy Herbert Von King Park that Saturday afternoon. Miraculously, as we prepared to leave — almost on cue — the skies cleared and the rains vacated the premises. Divinity was at work as we were drawn closer to the festivities…
On our walk to the bus station, my nerves were mounting. Doubt loomed… How could a rock and roller from the soft deserts of California make a proper go at charting the mood and atmosphere of a New York rap festival crawling with artists of such prestige? It hadn’t mattered at that point… The day had arrived, and doubt had no place here. It would have to be shed, so, as interview practice, I asked MKYFM what Young World meant to the people of New York.
“It’s like CFG (Camp Flog Gnaw), how it was in the early years.” An astute and deeply nostalgic observation of the playing field…
I recall that in high school CFG was treated like a musical Met Gala. A sonic conservatory of that jovial time. But, I dare say that most have grown out of that youthful moment — not in musical preference, but in maturity. Even to me, someone without a proclivity toward hip-hop, it felt like Young World encapsulated something entirely different. A refreshing, more intimate celebration of the genre that branched off into others to create something anew at every turn. Young World, even in its early stages, seemed like a revolutionary thing.
We arrived at Von King Park around 3 PM. It seemed there was still some preparation going on an hour out from when the show was set to start. The quaint park seemed to be an appropriate venue, open on all sides for unadulterated entry. Vendors were being set-up west of the stage; a bazaar-esque line of Carribean food and barbecue saturated the air with a mix of delectable scents. The anticipatory air was mounting as people of all ages and orientations funneled in lazily to get an advance on the front gates situated before the stage. Fruit hustlers surrounded the perimeter of the park in hopes of creeping into a good position in the middle of the small crowds. You could tell the Travis Scott debacle a few years ago put a good scare into performers, as water was made free and easily accessible at the back of the show.
Friendly faces and conversation occupied the next hour. The field was still sparsely occupied, but we were already on the search for interviewees. Since the beginning of my stay, I’ve found that New Yorkers are a severely mischaracterized people; they easily converse, remain stubbornly polite and evoke intrigue no matter what or who they find themselves into. Granted, niceties are ignored, but only in exchange for a heartfeltness unseen on each coast and in-between.
DJ A2Z was first on the artist slate, performing a masterful mix of jungle, house and a R&B flips for the mingling crowds. I diagnosed her initially as unlucky — openers always seem to draw the short end of the stick for shuffling crowds trying to find their place for later acts — but she brought an energy to the firstcomers that I myself couldn’t even ignore.
However good things may have been going, there was still work to be done. Our crew drifted over to the section designated for artists. MIKE, Earl Sweatshirt, Stacy Epps and others funneled in and out of a blacked-out RV and over to a side-gate where they would stop and talk to pretty much anyone in search of conversation or adulation.
There was a friendliness about this festival that I hadn’t seen at many others. Years ago, Coachella lost its hippy feel, Rolling Loud had become heaven only for fiends or dopeheads and others aren’t even worth mentioning… Maybe it was the Astroworld death machine that spoiled all the fun.
While I was still in this thought-trance about where it had all gone wrong, we ran into Lerado orbiting around the area. An undergrounder from St. Paul, Minnesota, there was a calm collectedness about him that you didn’t see too often in bustling New York. He was around my age, but there was a wisdom to him that bordered on brotherly. I asked him — aside from the very show we were at — what could’ve brought him to New York.
“I just fuck with it every time I’m out here… My environment is constantly changing.”
At this point, I was more interested Lerado’s art than what I was seeing on stage. I went off track when I met this pariah who held no shame. I asked him how constant changes in his environment and this show being in New York inspired something in his own process. “I’m not really tapped into the New York (scene), but when I’m comfortable, it’s a big factor,” Lerado responded. From the looks of it, with a burning joint in his mouth and a natural bounce to the frequencies outside of our interview, he was more than just comfortable.
There were people of every size and shape flanking us. They wore torn garments, sequined shirts and every piece of athletic wear from any sport you can think of. Champions… losers… Long knitted caps, Monochrome, mix-ups, flipped and looped samples rang around us. Tight dresses, tattoos of every artistic discipline… A scary obsession with clothing from the decades preceding ours — but when amalgamated and tossed together as many in the crowd had — something completely new. Beauty ran rampant everywhere, concentrating in Von King Park that crucial afternoon.
A thought revolved around my mind while I looked on at the controlled chaos of the Young World. Could something like this ever happen in a place that wasn’t New York? A city of mass congregation by individuals from each corner of the U.S. and far beyond. Nearly everyone is in pursuit of more than what they have, even if it seems they have all they could ever want.
454, a rapper who crawled up the coast from Florida seven years ago, told me with conviction that “This never happens in Florida… Where I’m at is just behind, (music) is just a hobby that you do, it’s nothing like this.” For a man who reps Florida like it’s carved into his chest, this was a bold and brave statement to make.
Others corroborated this statement as if it were a written tenet. Nobody did it like New York. The only exception were both of my interviewees from the D.C. area who swore to Christ that this was a replicable environment in the land of presidents and lies. Perhaps the facetiousness necessary in politics is infecting the populous… From where I stood, I couldn’t imagine this happening again.
MIKE took the stage himself not too long after. Backs straightened, gazes focused. This is where everyone was supposed to be, bending toward the commanding force. The General invited the crowd to dance. Somehow, it felt like he was talking to each of us individually. His large figure and booming voice didn’t feel at all demanding, but assured and persuasive. There was engagement all around — a rare sight at shows this day-in-age — a formation assembled, led by the man with a clear plan.
“Put ‘em together for my family…” MIKE told the crowd. It didn’t feel like he directed this sentiment only at his DJ, Taka, or the flock behind him backstage: the crowd was his family too. Yes. That’s what it felt like. The fact that I was able to experience this show and talk to all of those delightful artists in such an unabashed manner was astounding… This was a sincere, shameless family.
“I'm very, very, very, very, very grateful,” Mike said intimately into the mic. “This is YOUNG WORLD IV, it’s DOOMSDAY, it’s a lot of love in the park.”
DOOM… A detail of the day nobody could ignore.
June 13, 1971; MF DOOM was born in humble Hounslow of the United Kingdom. This fact would bring him great grief later on, but it was the truth of the matter, anyhow. For the sake of not sounding biographical about the almost mythical figure, he was a true-blue storyteller who draped his music with samples, melodies and maddening metaphors. Nearly everyone we spoke to cited him as an inspiration, a reservoir that artists of three or four generations pulled from for their own acts. His spirit was there; in MIKE, in Earl, in Sideshow. Hell, even Baby Osama showed glimpses of the Vaudeville Villain. His hand was still deep in every pot, even in death.
MIKE slid through the rest of his set with songs like “Sleepwalking”, “Burning Desire” and “R&B”. But for me, “R&B” felt personal, more than anything I’d heard that day. Before Ben, Dalton, Johnathan and I had all been able to reconnect, Ben had come back to the west coast to do a program through NYU in spring. We had finally got together for the first time since high school and took full advantage of that fact. Many times, after days chock-full of joy, we’d have a lethargic sit-down where we would recap the day and look forward to our New York excursion. Many of those times, to pull us out of stress or worry, Ben would queue up “R&B” by Mike and Tony Seltzer. As soon as the calm, gliding instrumental introduced MIKE to our ears we’d all get up and just dance. Reunited, loving every moment of the temporary stay together. This would inevitably once again end after summer. A poor reality, but one that only made us certain that we had to preserve that feeling. The reason for bothering to do this project at all.
I almost couldn’t believe this was the fourth annual installment of the festivities. I talked with YaTuSabe, a designer hailing from NYC, who worked on MIKE’s custom ‘BLACKPOWER’ Yankees jersey. He was very clearly tapped in and knowledgeable about the scene and all its moving parts. He was a pleasant, welcoming presence, so I figured if any of the previous shows had struck any distaste in him, they had to be tragic. But after asking if the tradition had lost any of its spirit over his last four visits, I realized Young World was spotless.
“The first year was like aprons, it was like small and shit, but it’s the same thing. It’s just expanded in size,” he told me.
I commented on how it seemed the skies had cleared for this event in particular and YaTuSabe said something that bounced around in my head since starting this piece.
“This was supposed to be happening, you know?... Everybody's beautiful bro, everybody got a good fit on, everybody's just happy to be here.”
Fate. Some grand design at work above.
THERAVADA, a rapper from Queens, was also in attendance. He wore an oversized, black Dallas Penn shirt with a white towel hanging over the sides of his head. He was a picturesque example of the real New York I had discovered lying far away from Wall Street and middle-Manhattan. A spitting image of the city that beheld him. What did a real-deal New York savant make of MIKE’s YOUNG WORLD?
“I think you gotta give credit to the fact that it's something new and original… I remember the first time I saw Raekwon and Ghostface it was a similar thing, you just walked in until the space was at capacity or whatever. It’s the same idea, we were just all in the park even if you couldn't get in you would be on the other side of the fence,” THERAVADA said.
A heavenly way to scope the scene, coming from a man named after a school of Buddhism. Truly transcendent stuff.
I checked in again with MKYFM, who was floating around backstage with his fellow artists. It was more of a friendly question I had accidentally recorded on my transcriptor, but it was astute, nonetheless.
“This festival is crucial for the development of music. It's super important and everybody comes out every year because this is really pushing the good aspects of music,” MKYFM said. “It's something that is actually for the people and not necessarily about industry or just making money or capitalizing.”
That’s precisely the reason I choose not to attend the shows of the washed up rockers that I’ve so admired in my life. The spirit has been lost for decades, reunion shows working just to stir up feelings of nostalgia while the old dogs work away at lyrics they hardly believe in anymore. Charging hundreds, even thousands of dollars so that fans can ruminate on a time passed that’ll never roll back toward them. Linearity is their enemy.
However, MIKE created something entirely different — a Woodstock for the modern man — fit with the sounds that have dominated this period of musical history and make it so very special.
Many of the people I talked to in the audience worked in and out of artistic disciplines: designers, shoemakers, videographers, engineers, musicians, painters, factory-workers, the partially or fully unemployed. There was even a coveted person in my own field who arrived pretty soon after I had talked to MKYFM. Pitchfork staff writer Alphonse Pierre met up with us in the midst of profiling Baby Osama, one of the artists on the performers slate. I couldn’t make sense of how a writer with such a critical eye could consume a concert like a regular fan, despite his highly apparent love for the culture.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t record our conversation because of the noise that blasted our ears from nearby the speakers, but Pierre told me that it was a distinct experience to listen to an artist that he’s forced to interact with and analyze critically. This was something I had even suffered from for this very piece. I looked for flaws and failures all around me, but all I saw were smiles. I felt like a failure for my lack of journalistic or critical integrity. But after some thought, I wondered if my love was critical in itself. Perhaps critique needn’t be so analytical, searching up and down for flaws where there weren’t any. This was my revelation: the simple bliss I found myself in just worked on its own. My greatest contribution could just be living it.
And so, as Earl Sweatshirt took the stage, I turned off all of my recording materials, gathered with my friends, and just watched. No record of my being there or interacting with the artists mattered at that moment. The friendship I shared with my rag-tag group of cameramen and writers, in a city with a million dreams and dreamers, mattered more than anything in that moment. Earl — who I didn’t get the chance to interview out of fear of bothering the new family man — played “Real hiphop,” a collaboration with Niontay, MIKE and El Cousteau. A four headed dragon with irreplicable vibrations.
It’s hard to remember what the stage even looked like during the show. I was laser-focused on the faces of all my friends, all hardcore hip-hop heads. This event wasn’t for me, but I was allowed in anyway, because that’s what YOUNGWORLD was really about. All I could tell at that point was that my confidants were in heaven, and MIKE had put it all together perfectly.
YOUNGWORLD is like the new Woodstock. Where the youth feel like they have an eternity to waste, motivated only by their politics, artistry and like-mindedness. A swarm of kids clawing for something bigger and better than what they have — a microcosm of New York as a whole. That feeling of togetherness made its way from cracks in the ground into the heads of all the attendants just as the heat had that morning.
As the rains resumed again the next afternoon and I got ready to write this piece, I queued up “nuthing I can do is wrng” by MIKE: he made a new fan of me in just one afternoon. I felt the words to that song were truer than they had ever been. Nothing that MIKE did on the day of YOUNGWORLD was wrong. I found it was the very intrigue that drew me from out west.
It was New York and music, properly done.