SEARCH FOR: OUTSIDE LANDS

“Get Refreshed” is a monthly column by Billie Bugara covering all things digital in the music world. Refresh yourself here. Mental Makes Music That Sounds Like Mental Mental’s career has been fascinating to follow. I found their music pretty much just like most other people in the grander “pandemic era” of Internet music – through our Discord/Twitter/Whatever communities. In 2020, Mental was an artist that I knew had a bright future ahead of them, and was someone I had so much faith in due to their organic approach to songwriting, styling, and behavior overall. Their attitude towards music is unlike anyone else’s; they are light, simple, and down to Earth. They’re just Mental… and you know what I’m talking about if you’ve heard the music and/or talked to them as a friend. Friend… I don’t think there’s single word that best describes everything Mental is about than that. Even if you don’t know them personally, Mental is a friend. Their music is friendly, and their artistic nature revolves around friendship. I’ve observed this throughout their lengthy career now, but that’s not what makes it so fascinating like I expressed before. What makes it that way is just how much they’ve worked to make …

Though August might mean the solemn end of summer to most, Bay Area natives embrace the month as the welcome harbinger of Outside Lands. With the festival set to kick off this Friday, many of us are scrambling last-minute to assemble the perfect schedule – a painstakingly precise itinerary filled with high-energy performances, insane crowds, and gourmet corn dogs. For the indecisive and uncertain, let this list of must-see acts be your guiding light during the weekend’s festivities. Maxo Kream It’s been a minute since Maxo dropped his newest LP Weight of the World late last year – but having just dropped the long-awaited deluxe version, few artists on the lineup are as essential to see as this young rapper. From the triumphant horns of the Tyler-assisted “BIG PERSONA” to the downtempo ambiance of album closer “BELIEVE” with Don Toliver – the Houston rapper’s energy is just as infectious as it is massive, making him the perfect act to see if you’re looking to throw a few elbows. Having received co-signs from artists like Megan Thee Stallion and Travis Scott to A$AP Rocky and Freddie Gibbs – Maxo Kream’s ascension to hip-hop stardom is anything but accidental – and you …

It is sometimes difficult to be from a city like Chicago because although I love all of the well-known, highly regarded emcees that call this place home, I am even more enthralled by the underground talents that are making waves and solidifying their spot in the history of the Windy City. It’s definitely a great problem to have, so I’m not complaining, but just keeping up with all of these different up-and-comers is overwhelming in the best possible way. Ronnie Rage is a local artist who has been on his grind for the past few years, and while it seemed like he was putting out awesome music from the start, as he started to gain more traction, I think that his quality and notoriety increased tenfold which was something that definitely helped him gain more and more buzz as his name spread throughout the scene here. Last year, he released his project Born Outside which definitely helped him solidify a more solid spot in the Chicago music landscape, and as he released singles like “exodus” and “tiptoe/snottynose” as precursors to his project [anti.verse], I was more than confident that this would be yet another spectacle that would continue to boost …

Broward County representative F$O Dinero lands himself in our pages again with his Valentines’ Day release Pretty Girls Get Everything that reveals Dinero’s more emotional side in addition to the tribulation and glamour that his songs usually accentuate. At eight-tracks this project is the perfect length and allows Dinero to focus in one particular central theme, being love and relationships obviously, but also highlight outside, competing issues that can make romance difficult. F$O Dinero is one of South Florida’s most prolific artists and has been on a remarkably consistent run for the past four years now but continues to reveal new wrinkles in his music despite having made so much already which is a large testament to his creativity. I am eager to see what he follows this up with and if he will ever package another mixtape similarly alongside a different central topic.

“Get Refreshed” is a monthly column by Billy Bugara covering all things digital in the music world. Refresh yourself here.  ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yung lean tik tok Okay so, usually (usually) I try and stay out of discourse like this. I did write a pretty lengthy piece nearly a year ago now on the topic of “gatekeeping” for Gum’s Halcyon.txt zine – which should be out sometime soon believe it or not. It sums up my thoughts about the matter pretty abstractly, but I wanted the article to highlight why gatekeeping occurs in the first place, which circumstances its occurrences are valid in, and most centrally here, the ways we can navigate around it. I’m only bringing this up now to say that… honestly… that’s as O P I N I O N A T E D as you’re gonna see me get for a while. And that was a year ago, even; I’ve become even more jaded towards the idea of participating in these types of discussions in any public sphere since then.  That being said, when it comes to the most formative artist of my life, I feel like I HAVE to say something. I recently tweeted out a response to the crowd …

“Get Refreshed” is a weekly column by Billy Bugara covering all things digital in the music world. Refresh yourself here.  Cover by IllustratorFile Maple: PLASTIC SURGEON If online music’s limitless boundaries were to symbolize any single notion in regards to its own working status, it would have to be the fact that there’s no such thing as “too much” anymore. Today’s online acts are able to freely string together as many genres, scenes, and collaborative showcases as they’d like, and if the product is resounding enough, nuanced enough, or just downright effective as a standalone creation, it becomes yet another contributing piece of evidence to the above belief as it is.  I could go on and on about the pure and utter freedom of the online music world, but that would be pretty damn boring after a while (even that intro paragraph… pretty boring, yeah?). So just like with most, if not all forms of art, it’s always better to show, not tell. And fittingly enough, resident super-producer and all-around musical exhibitionist Maple just dropped an all-encompassing project that does a lengthy amount of showing… 20 tracks worth of showing, that is.  PLASTIC SURGEON is an hour-long romp through just …

When Andre Dontrel Burt decided to release the three-track EP, We Are Aliens, as SoFaygo, a new pseudonym to replace his former rap name, Trvllinese, the reception wasn’t exactly favorable. “I was getting backlash when I made that transition in 2018,” the 19-year-old rapper remembered, “People was not fucking with it. They liked Trvllinese better. I told them, bro, watch, y’all gonna see.” You make it seem like you knew what was going to happen? “I did,” he replied, “I always felt like I was going to be great, bro.”  Self-assurance doesn’t come in short supply for the Georgia-born teen. His need for a superstar’s resolve dates back to Junior year at Harrison High School. “I started caring less about people’s opinions in 11th grade,” SoFaygo recalled, “That’s when I started wearing different kinds of clothes, dyeing my hair in all different kinds of colors, just adapting to what Atlanta was on at the time.” “But niggas used to try me, bruh,” he asserted. “I don’t know why, maybe because I was different, but they would call me and my music weird.” With a light chuckle, the confident rookie added, “I was having none of that, bruh. I was always …

The Los Angeles music scene has seen a very successful yet equally turbulent past decade with shining bright spots that will forever impact and shape the hip-hop landscape around the globe, but has also seen equal embarrassments and gaffs that tarnishes the city’s reputation and takes away from what the most talented, or more importantly those who need to be heard most, are saying. Between clout-culture and meme-rap, L.A. has taken some major hits here lately, and the tragic passing of artists like Nipsey Hussle, or the incarceration of artists like 03 Greedo, has taken even more of a negative toll, as the city’s greatest rappers all seem to be robbed of their time here on earth one way or another. For this reason, artists like Bravo the Bagchaser are especially important these days in Los Angeles and unfortunately are becoming too few and far between, but Bravo is able to give you a little bit of everything, keeping you engaged with catchy, bouncy turn-up songs that are dichotomized with melodic and emotional ballads where he lets his hard-exterior down to unpack some of his feelings, and also has more than his fair-share of street-stories on this project, painting vivid, …

“Get Refreshed” is a weekly column by Billy Bugara covering all things digital in the music world. Refresh yourself here.  Cover by Alejo Andres Remembering To Forget With Cat Mother Any creative eager to move towards new beginnings in their artistic career might focus on the idea of the “future” more than anything else. Most creatives would more than likely share this belief in full; planning out how things might turn out in going through with an artistic transition is much better than going in blind, obviously.  But what’s even more obvious is this: Quinn – the 16-year-old phenom of the online music world – has never, and will never, be classified under the title of “most creatives.” Simply put, we’re dealing with a talent who stands completely amongst themselves in regards to their place in the modern music landscape as a whole, and nothing better exemplifies that than their brand new artistic endeavor under the pseudonym “Cat Mother.”  This fresh title has arrived with an equally-fresh outlook in regards to their craft. The immense, impactful, and influential waves that they have already created with their past pop-centric work has been effectively concealed and placed out of sight by way …

Forrest Nolan is truly one of the most promising up and coming talents in the industry. Odds are if you’ve heard one of his songs, you’ve experienced his dynamic vocals and innate talent. I’m a huge fan of his music, but I’m even more of a fan of the person he is. Instead of just writing an article about his recent tracks, I thought it would be immensely beneficial to sit down and chat with this exceptional individual. To get a refreshing dose of good conversation, continue reading down below! — Sam: Alright, tell me about yourself, your upbringing and how you came to love music yourself? Forrest: So, I grew up singing in boys choir. That has been my foundation for music and I started that when I was four. It wasn’t something that I was ever excited about though. I think maybe if it was co-ed and I got to meet girls, but no, it felt like a pretty nerdy thing to do, but I owe my music director kind of everything, because I just learned so much from having that experience. Being in that world my whole life made me develop an appreciation for more experimental music …