Earl Sweatshirt

With a name inspired by Blanket Jackson, Odd Future’s Earl Sweatshirt is street credible to the level of sewers. Videos have the feel of Old Dirty Bastard as a Gummo character. Test him and he may ollie right up on you. Like the rest of the Odd Future family, Earl is a young beast on a skateboard infecting the crowd with a silly blend of humor, decrepit gore and violence and adolescent machismo. His show will be a (lowlife) highlight of DT:NYC.

Ratking

When Ratking played an in-store performance last fall, frontman Wiki was all New York street kid, missing front teeth in a ragged, dirty T-shirt, dogfighting with the microphone. His energy was massive and his spitfire flow delivered what the crowd expected — a raw, exposed street kid on the verge of disaster, if not already swimming in it. With heady lyrics coming out of a body that looks about 15, Wiki and the rest of Ratking are the future, through an Armageddon lens.

Trash Talk

The band Trash Talk is skate punk thrash in the vein of Black Flag and Bad Brains. Sweat and bass and pounding riffs with a crowd that brawl-moshes through their set and stays hungry for more Trash. From backyard parties in Los Angeles the boys bring their brand of street grime under palm trees to Gotham.

Kilo Kish

Like posh street wear, Kilo Kish manages to be fashion friendly and street credible all at once. See Metro’s Kilo Kish: Downtown pretty.

Sky Ferreira

Sky Ferreira has a lot of pop in her sound but there’s a serious element of concrete jungle in her eyes while she melodically laments a broken heart. Maybe it’s the black lace and bleach job but there’s something lowbrow about her glazed-over, jaded expression that screams street savvy. With sticky hooks and a tight band she plays DT on Friday night.

Visit thedowntownfestival.com for tickets and schedule

Odd Future’s Earl Sweatshirt is street credible to the level of sewers. Credit: Odd Future

The post Downtown Music Festival: Street credentials appeared first on Metro.us.

Being female in NYC it’s natural to gravitate toward girl vocals and beats jumping off a city landscape. Being in the crowd at Maluca Mala shows with Das Racist or getting inspired by Santigold’s performance at Bowery Ballroom is a given. Sweating to MIA at Siren Fest in Coney Island or seeing Kudu play her weekly at Nublu. Natasha Diggs’ weekly crate-digging at Mobile Mondays on the Bowery. These are requisite city excursions.

So it’s no surprise a current favorite is Kilo Kish; cute-ing up the boy scene in the LES. Mashing a visual artist’s vision into her music career, Kish is this week’s Sauce.

• 
  View Video

  K+ by Kilo Kish

Kilo Kish is pronounced key low keesh, like quiche, as in a thousand pounds of buttery egg tart. She hails from Orlando and came to Gotham on an art scholarship to Pratt. More artist than musician (think Karen O and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs), she easily connects to a larger audience via fashion and press.

Kish released her new mixtape, K+ this month. She collaborates with local talent Smash Simmons and Flatbush Zombies, and with national names like Childish Gambino and The Internet. K+ is spoken word more than singing. Kish’s bedroom-worthy vocals remind me of Lady T (Tigra from L’Trimm). She is the first to admit she can’t rap but there she is rapping along as the backdrop to runway shows at Milan Fashion Week.

At 22, Kilo Kish is getting nods from Vogue magazine and taking her downtown shine on tour to the UK. Artistic tendencies are showcased on the video K+, documenting an exhibit of the making of her mixtape. She is all subject, in charge of her image and enjoying the ride with her bff Kitty Cash, DJing. Upbeat and sonically smoothed out, these downtown It Girls are easy to get behind.

The post Kilo Kish: Downtown pretty appeared first on Metro.us.