Run The Jewels brought Queens to Williamsburg via Nas last night, closing out Northside Festival on an Illmatic note. At 50 Kent, Nas performed “Made You Look” off his 2002 album God’s Son, joining RTJ on stage for the first time since he debuted The Season last year at the RTJ2 release party at Nitehawk. (Remember that screening of The Warriors?) They’re basically fam now, what with El-P and Killer Mike’s last two albums released on Nasty Nas’s Mass Appeal Records and a third still to come next year.
Despite the downpour, Nas followed Gangsta Boo and Boots as special guests of the evening before making audience members just about pee their pants from witnessing nearly three minutes of Queensbridge’s finest. If you missed it all, watch our video above, or grab but a taste of the man himself on a Sprite can. The world truly is yours, Nas.
Friday night, Michael Cera joined The Unicorn’s equally lovable indie cuddle bug Alden Penner on stage at the Knitting Factory as they made their first tour stop in support of Penner’s Canada in Space EP, out June 29 via City Slang.
Earlier this year the boys collaborated on the single “Meditate,” prepping for their Euro tour in June and July. The evening was filled with bad sound, cuts from Canada in Space, Cera’s solo work off his self-released Bandcamp collection of lullabies True That and that awesome hexagonal bass he totes around. Synth-heavy lo-fi dream pop would probably be the best way to describe the sound that everyone packed into the room for.
Cera is no foreigner to the musical world. He’s played with Modest Mouse member Joe Plummer in Mister Heavenly, the indie supergroup made of Honus Honus of Man Man, Nicholas Thorburn of Islands and The Unicorns, sunshine and ice cream cones.
