The Art of Cool Festival
Various Venues, Downtown Durham
Friday, September 28 and Saturday, September 29, 2018
Durham is indeed where great things happen: a historical hip-hop moment happened at the fifth year Art of Cool Festival. After a decade of separation and a number of public remarks adamantly rejecting the idea of patching up old business wounds, Little Brother, hip-hop’s most missed trio reunited Saturday night at the Art of Cool Festival.
Phonte Coleman (Phonte), Thomas Jones (Rapper Big Pooh), and Patrick Douthit (9th Wonder) met on North Carolina Central University’s campus in the late nineties. Since then, they have represented North Carolina hip-hop well in both their individual contributions to the culture and their collaborative success. The reunion came about after Royce da 5’9 missed the flight that would’ve delivered him to Durham in time for his 7:45 p.m. set opening for Nas and Erykah Badu at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park. According to Phonte, the group had only two hours to prepare for their well-polished set. Not a beat was missed as Phonte and Pooh fed off of each other’s energy and delivered their rhymes with such a smooth cadence. At the top of the stage, 9th Wonder held it down controlling both the crowd and the set list.
His beat production offered festivalgoers a nostalgic vibe that has been a request from Little Brother fans for quite some time. Once the news was released on social media from all involved parties, for a split second it felt as if the world stopped. Does this mean an album or a tour is in Little Brother’s future? Not necessarily, but what it does mean is that for one night, one of the most influential hip-hop groups shared the love they have for one another and their talents with us, and that should be more than enough.
The Little Brother reunion was a high-water mark for the festival, which celebrated its fifth year in Durham and its first under new ownership with The DOME Group. Friday night got off to a bit of a rocky start with snarls in ticketing logistics at the DBAP, but otherwise, the festival’s fifth year proved to be a roaring success.
The addition of the Durham Bulls Athletics Park as a venue amplified the “festival feel,” lending stage-design and lighting flexibility to Nas’s and Erykah Badu’s sets. While Nas used engaging videos, energetic lighting, and empowering photos during his set, Badu took her audience to an intergalactic space. The space also proved perfect for deejay sets between headliners, who kept the energy high with throwback hits. DJ Bro-Rabb, of the legendary The Butta Team, spun a classic seventies set that had nearly the entire ballpark singing and dancing along.
Before Little Brother’s big reunion, Grammy-award winning producer 9th Wonder brought his popular monthly nineties-themed dance party to the Armory on Friday night. Along with Spinderella, one-third of the iconic hip-hop trio Salt-N-Pepa, the two turned the Armory into an old-school house party. Festivalgoers were busting out their best dance moves while verbally reacting with a mixture of “Ooooo” and “Ayeeee” each time 9th cut to the next track.
Saturday began with Innovate Your Cool programming and a number of community partnered day parties. I was able to attend “The Art of the Cypher,” “Attention for Sale: Brand Recognition” and “Hip-Hop and Feminism” featuring Grammy-nominated rapper, Rapsody. During the “Hip-Hop and Feminism” panel, Rapsody exchanged good energy and a number of laughs with Dr. Yaba Blay, a professor at North Carolina Central. They covered a number of topics, including what it meant to be a feminist to Rapsody’s personal experience in the music industry. Two audience members even shed tears as they expressed their love and admiration for Rapsody and her contribution to hip-hop culture.
As the Art of Cool Fest continues to demonstrate their curatorial strengths, this year’s line-up guaranteed nothing but stellar performances from our favorite Jazz, Jazz influenced, R&B and hip-hop acts. If you need additional proof, check social media, as there was an outpour of love acknowledging the quality of performances.
I have a number of favorite moments from this weekend, from Erykah’s transformative performance to hearing the soulful sounds of Young Bull to witnessing a revival of one of hip-hop’s greatest trios. But amid all of the music, I was able to meet festivalgoers from all over: not just Durham and Raleigh, but Charlotte, Missouri, New York, Los Angeles, and Toronto. My informal “how are you enjoying the weekend” small talk turned into twenty-minute conversations about how they were having the time of their lives. One person even compared their experience to a family reunion, and another had attended Art of Cool every year.
As one Art of Cool fan shared on Facebook, “AOC Fest is like an HBCU Homecoming weekend. You’re hugging folks, singing, dancing, reminiscing and taking pictures. It’s reconnecting with your friends and jamming to perfectly curated performances from Erykah Badu, Nas, Anthony Hamilton, Maxwell, Little Brother and more.” Love seeped through the air as couples exchanged laughs, sang their favorite songs simultaneously at the top of their lungs, and danced the night away. At the end of year five it is more clear than ever that Durham needs AOC—it adds the cool with the perfect touch of soul to Durham and positions the Bull City to be everyone’s favorite reunion city.
