I’m out here in Chicago privileged enough to be covering my first Pitchfork Music Festival and I've been having a great time here catching new music and hanging out with my URL/IRL fam and the Noisey festival coverage fam—and then day two came. Cloudy with a 30 percent chance of rain at 9 PM turned into a 3 PM monsoon. Muddy men and women in soaked tanks and muddy jorts scurrying under sorry looking trees, squads ten people deep under single umbrellas. Lightning strikes hitting the field caused a cancellation, then a maybe-cancellation, then came an announcement that the park would be re-opening at 4:20 PM (nice). It was a pretty thrilling start to the middle of the weekend.Continued below.But while the rain delay caused much havoc, skress, and a complete destruction of my (and your) carefully crafted *goes to a festival once* fit, and the cancellation of Vince Staples’s flight and set, I discovered my favorite act at the festival by far: a nine-year-old rapper named Really Rakiya (pronounced Ruh-KAI-uh) who was rapping outside of the festival.Really Rakiya was going IN on her curbside stage under an umbrella between entrances with her father on the aux cord and her street team (her brother) handing out flyers with her IG and Twitter handles. Again, she’s nine years old. She’s originally from Pittsburgh, and has been rapping and writing her own songs for the past two years. I watched her perform two tracks but her second song, “Tougher Than You Thought” whether banger or slapper, was anthemic.With more poise, style, and charisma then I could ever muster, she spits “ain’t nobody beating me…just because of my gender, boy you looking at a winner. Don't you ever forget boy, always remember” before launching into the chorus “Tougher than you thought…we fought…for everything we got.”9.8 best new music pic.twitter.com/VwjRnIKDtj— Sus Blaze (@YungCostanza)July 18, 2015Bonus content with @ItsreallyRakiya #PitchforkFest pic.twitter.com/D2liqDHV8F— Sus Blaze (@YungCostanza)July 19, 2015Speaking with her I also found out that besides being a talented lyricist and performer she’s also the inventor of The Germ Watch, a small bracelet with storage for “candy, anything” and it also dispenses hand sanitizer. Your Apple Watch could never.Yung Costanza is trying to stay dry. Find him on Twitter.
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