Trillectro Fest Put Hip-Hop And EDM On a Collision Course

Photos by Lucas Alvarado / Far Fetched

In recent years, hip-hop and EDM have been on-again-off-again lovers, mostly at EDM's leisure. Rappers have begun sheepishly waving glowsticks and half-heartedly pumping their fists, while the EDM world has stuffed itself full of SWAG and YOLO. But a few weekends ago was the second annual Trillectro Festival in DC, an event that signaled a more equal partnership between the two camps: PLUR and turnup cultures coming together in a way that will hopefully be the face of rave to come.

Trillectro was the brainchild of Modi Oyewole, Quinn Coleman, and Marcel Marshall—three 20-something party promoters who call themselves DC to BC. The trio of DC natives first made their name with a popular radio show at Boston College, then by throwing hip-hop shows in DC after college.

Modi said the idea to throw a festival in the "sweet spot" where EDM and hip-hop meet came from a 2012 road trip to Coachella. "We were privileged to be able to travel to California. Not a lot of people can afford to or care to do that. We said 'Why don't we bring that kind of experience here?'" So despite only having two other events under their belt—wildly successful shows with pre-good kid, m.A.A.d. city Kendrick Lamar and local hero Fat Trel—the group decided to stage their own day-long affair.

NYC rapper A$AP Illz

Trillectro's success is the latest reminder of how far we've come from a time when hip-hop wanted little to do with EDM. Just a few years ago, all we had was Pitbull rapping over clichéd house staples or the Black Eyed Peas facing off with Swedish House Mafia. Granted, this is far from the first time that hip-hop and global dance culture have overlapped. In the early 90s, Chicago rappers created hip-house to appeal to their emergent Midwestern house scene (with decidedly mixed results). In the late 90s and early 2000s, underground rap was a fixture in the rave scene, finding kindred spirits in jungle and drum & bass. But today the stakes are higher: electronic music in the form of EDM is a dominant force in the pop landscape.

EDM's profitability and hip-hop's cultural cachet have put them on a collision course.

After a few years of insufferable Dutch house and brostep remixes of every rap song ever, the rap/EDM crossover moment (what some are calling "trap EDM") has gone way beyond casual dabbling. Flosstradamus and RL Grime have served as a conduit for rappers like Danny Brown, Juicy J, and A$AP Rocky to enter the scene. Hudson Mohawke is producing for Kanye while Skrillex is working with A$AP Rocky. Steve Aoki is about to tour with Waka Flocka Flame and Pharrell. TNGHT's Lunice does the cooking dance while headlining European festivals. And, of course, nobody will shut up about how much they love Molly.

One would think this overlap would bring the largely black hip-hop and largely white EDM crowds closer together. And it has to some extent, in as much as many artists have expanded their fanbases. It's unlikely, for example, that anyone outside of Harlem would cared that much about Araabmuzik's live MPC wizardry without the support of EDM fans.

But if anything, trap EDM has put more distance between rap and EDM fans by creating an alternative version of rap without all that "unpleasant" rapping. The music is getting blacker but the crowds often aren't; in the words of veteran DC club DJ and Trillectro artist Tittsworth, Iit's not uncommon for a lot of trap shows across the country to be essentially an offshoot of rap music played exclusively for white people."

LA DJ duo Nadastrom

This racial divide makes it hard to see trap EDM as anything other than white Americans yet again ripping off black music for profit. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of American music knows that too often, this story doesn't end with the right people getting the money or the credit. So it's refreshing to see that the enthusiastic Trillectro crowd was actually very diverse.

Modi and Quinn made it very clear to me that they weren't hand-picking acts which they felt would appeal to both EDM fans and rap fans (race aside). All they did was book artists they knew would draw, and the result spanned genres. And so while it's fair to criticize the appropriative nature of "trap EDM" and it's white fanbase, Trillectro challenges this narrative.

Unfortunately, there's momentum against acknowledging the schism in rap. The "real hip-hop" orthodoxy within the rap community pushes back hard at anything that doesn't code as "authentic." Peter Rosenberg's public shots at Nicki Minaj's boilerplate EDM-pop hit "Starships" caused a huge schism within seminal New York rap station Hot 97 during their Summerjam festival last year. Festivals like Rock the Bells and Paid Dues trade on this orthodoxy, assembling sprawling line-ups of underground rappers and older legends who no longer attract mainstream attention. Race is less of an issue for these shows but they exert a creative force on the hip-hop community nonetheless.

And so it's worth noting that Trillectro didn't just bridge the EDM/hip-hop gap; it also had plenty for fans of rappin-ass rap. While Harlem weirdo A$AP Ferg had the biggest set of the day, the headliner was DC hero and radio staple Wale. The festival was diverse both sonically and culturally. Trillectro brought the best of American popular music together in one place, and hopefully this will continue to happen.