R.I.P. No Longer: Holograms at Rock the Bells

I’ll admit that when I first saw the 2Pac hologram from Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg’s Coachella performance last year, I thought it was amazing.[1] There had been rumors that there would be a Nate Dogg hologram, but what a hologram of a dead artist would entail was up for conjecture. That the Pac hologram looked eerily real—albeit with not exactly historically accurate abs—and that he said “Coachella” in a voice that sounded exactly like 2Pac, was pretty remarkable, and watching him perform “2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted” alongside Snoop was great. I thought it was a great tribute to 2Pac.

Yet by the fourth or fifth time I watched the video I started to feel gross. It wasn’t a blatant cash grab like most of his posthumous albums have been, but it wasn’t all that far off. I’m sure it increased sales of his back catalog, but it struck me as more of a publicity stunt than a heartfelt tribute. 2Pac was probably watching that hologram from Cuba and shaking his head.

Danny Brown, the Rap Game David Ruffin

Danny Brown is the new Ol’ Dirty Bastard, but not in the sense that he really sounds anything like the late great Wu-Tang rapper. He’s the new ODB because like Dirt McGirt he is completely original, totally unhinged, debauched, and defiantly weird at every turn. There is no father to his style. Fitting then that his new single is titled “ODB.” Unsurprisingly, he made sure to bring his A-game when name-checking Big Baby Jesus, and he absolutely destroys Paul White’s eerie prog rock beat. At this point White has earned his place among the best psychedelic beat makers of all time, and his instrumental opus Paul White & The Purple Brain has remained in rotation for the last three years. We’ll all be blessed if he has more beats on OLD, which will also feature Freddie Gibbs, Schoolboy Q, A$AP Rocky, Purity Ring, SKYWALKR, Charli XCX, A-Trak, and Rustie. To top things off, Ruff Mercy, the best rap video director out right now, made a suitably trippy video to accompany the song. But even without Ruff Mercy videos or Paul White beats, Brown is still the drug-crazed visionary we’ve come to expect since XXX. Bitch, he’s David Ruffin in ruffles, no stuffing, bundles of Peruvian snow with his shirt tucked in. May he never change.

OLD is out on September 30.