Lubeen

It’s the weekend! And an especially great weekend as this Sunday is our first ever Lowlapalooza festival. Once again, Bwog brings you info on the performers. Bopper Melissa O’Sullivan brings you Lubeen and Suchith Vasudevan while Sean Vonzie presents Brother K. Performance times noted next to names.

Lubeen (2:05 to 2:30 pm)

Lubeen (John Lubeen Hamilton, CC’13) raps. Spiting his rhymes over a lightly syncopated beat, Lubeen bares all in his lyrics. He raps about life. Influenced by Joe Buddin, Jay-Z and Nas, Lubeen makes his lyrics a window to his personality, emotions, successes, and even failures. His life is in his music. Even his psych major side is known to pop up in his rhymes (where he throws down the term “retrograde amnesiac” like it’s nobody’s business.)

As a highschool freshman Lubeen began writing poetry. His lines quickly turned into lyrics and he started freestyling on a weekly radio show. At Columbia he brought his freestyling talents to the Columbia University Society of Hip-Hop (CUSH). And you might remember hearing his smooth rhymes at Bacchanal ’11 where CUSH opened for Snoop Dog. For Saturday, Lubeen has teamed up with a DJ who will be laying down fresh beats.

Suchith Vasudevan (10-10:20 am)

The opening act of Lowlapalooza is a little unpredictable. I wasn’t able to work out a sit-in on a jam session with Suchith Vasudevan, SEAS’13, because he practices only between the hours of 1 and 4 am. And although from my interview with the moderately inebriated one-man performer, I wasn’t able to learn much about what kind of music he plays, I did realize that this is definitely not an act to miss. Suchith is certainly a character. He couldn’t classify his music because he adheres to “no genre bounds” and lives by the motto “screw the rules, play what you like.” He did reveal that he is influenced by U2, Dave Matthews Band, as wells funk and electronic music genres.

With his electric guitar, he’ll be playing and singing both original music and covers. Suchith’s original songs are untitled and mostly about love. He has adventurous cover choices, promising both Radiohead and trance music. I’m not quite sure what to expect for this set, but I know it’ll be exciting.

Brother K

Brother K (3:20 to 4 pm)

Brother K: high minded, low fidelity. Take the political awareness of Refused, the blusey tendencies of the Black Keys, and the energy of the White Stripes and you’ve got a good idea of the modern amalgamation of indie rock these guys (Lucas Kwong and Garret Fiddler both on guitar and piano with Lucas as main vocalist) perform. It’s the sort of “Unprofessional, Unproduced, and Over-Achieving” stuff your friends in ADP would post all up on their avant-garde tumblrs right now. But actually–these two scholarly English grad students pen lyrics like modern Hemingways after a handle of Hennesey. Hella raw dawg.

Sometimes they don’t have enough mics and just sing into each other’s porcelain complexions for that bromantic experience. Regarding their live setup, Kwong says they got “no bass because we want that edge” (but way more elegantly and in determined prose). They don’t write the same beat for three different songs because they are so much better and more creative than that. This will be a fantastic performance.

Brother K and Lubeen pictures via their websites, respectively