Recap written by Mike Rosen:
It took months of planning and a lot of jumping through hoops that I couldn't even see, but after a few hundred emails/texts/voice mails I finally got 6th Sense, Wildabeast and Jelani out to Wesleyan University in Connecticut to benefit The HOPE Academy in Tanzania.
The night started out with 6th, Wil and DJ Kraff Swagger stuck in traffic on the Merrit and people calling my cell to tell me that we were missing XLR cables -- meaning we'd either have half the speakers and two mics, or one mic and all the speakers (yeah, not so fly). But somehow all that came together, so after some yondo chicken parm with fuckouttahere bread I brought the artists over to Psi Upsilon fraternity for a little pre-party. We got the sound up and running about 10 minutes after doors were supposed to open, but it was all good.
Heads were pouring in from the cold by 10:30 and by 10:45 DJ Chrome Punch had the spot rocking. It was the first Friday back from vacation, and it was clear that people wanted to party.
Meanwhile, upstairs Notherground was chilling in the Presidential Suite/Green Room making friends and losing memories. Just before 12, Kraff Swagger took over the decks-- the crowd didn't even miss a step. A few minutes later, I introduced 6th, Wil and Jelani -- and they took the place over. Dudes shot right out the gates, hitting the ground running, hands were in the air, the crowd was jumping, girls were dancing on the stage... just nutty. The guys rocked the place. Even when the power cut out to the decks halfway through the set, they just started to spit acapella and kept it up for a solid 2-3 minutes while we got shit up and running again. Then some chick dancing on the stage knocked a monitor over, sending the thing hurling at my head, but we caught it and put it back up... music never stopped.
Afterward we kicked it upstairs till the early hours, relaxing and listening to the three of them spit frees for a solid hour and a half straight, no rest, no gimmicks, just straight freestyling. Wild. OD. Ripe. Call it what you want, all I know is that I had a crazy night and that we raised over $800 for The HOPE Academy.
Shout out to Notherground for coming through, Psi U for hosting the event, my crew for helping to piece it all together, and Wesleyan for coming out strong in support of a good cause.
