This past summer at Moonrise I had the opportunity to catch a set from one of my favorite trap artists, Bro Safari. I’d missed him at Forest and Hudson so I was really looking forward to hearing some “Spook” or his remix of M.I.A’s “Yala” so I could get my stank face on. Unfortunately, my vibe was killed when I saw MC Sharpness come on stage and grab the mic. Immediately my ears were assaulted with his contribution to the set which consisted mostly of him yelling “Turn up” and “Everybody turn up” before every drop. It became unbearable five minutes in so I left to catch the rest of RJD2’s dope set.
MC’s originally stood for Master of Ceremonies and in hip-hop and electronic music they are traditionally the ones on the Mic. They are there to (briefly) hype up the crowd or engage with them in another way than the music. In electronic music this is particularly effective for DJs who mix and don’t play a live instrument because the crowd reacts to the artist’s voice and their performance feels more genuine and connected. However, MC Sharpness has taken this responsibility of interaction to another level. Try listening to Bro Safari with MC Sharpness at Ultra this year.
Here’s what is wrong:
1) There is a fine line between interaction and overpowering the crowd with shouting. Think of it like being hugged to death.
2) There is a difference between an artist hopping on the mic to say what’s up or tell the crowd he/she loves them and shouting “Turn Up” the entire set.
3) There are diminishing returns to trying to hype up the crowd. At some point the people can’t get any more hyped and the yelling just becomes annoying.
Although I’ve focused a lot on MC Sharpness, the annoying MC epidemic isn’t specific to him. Rusko yelled a lot during his Ultra 2013 set and Flosstradamus loves to overuse the mic as well like in their Ultra 2014 set.
It seems that this trend of obnoxious MC’s is something that is going to stay in our scene, unless something is done about it. Personally I’ve been avoiding Bro Safari sets when I see that MC Sharpness will be on stage. In our scene artists listen and interact with their fans on a more personal leve so I’m sure if everyone tweeted at Bro Safari to tell Sharpness to calm down, something would be done. Until then, I won’t be seeing any Bro Safari sets.
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