Two months ago, DC to BC blogger Modele “Modi” Oyewole was sitting around with his friends Quinn Coleman and Marcel Marshall. The trio discussed the state of popular music, and what to call the marriage of hip-hop and electronica. “Trillectro,” Oyewole recalls telling his friends. The name stuck.
On Aug. 11, Oyewole, Coleman, and Marshall will host the first ever Trillectro Festival at the Fairgrounds in Southeast, a daylong concert that merges 22 hip-hop/electronica acts onto one bill. D.C. favorites Tabi Bonney, Tittsworth, and Oddisee are scheduled to perform. Chicago DJ duo Flosstradamus and Los Angeles rapper Schoolboy Q will headline the show. Doug E. Fresh is hosting.
But assembling the festival wasn’t easy, even if it came together quickly. After the initial conversation with his friends, Oyewole was in Nigeria for his grandfather’s birthday. There, the wireless connection would shut off periodically, making it difficult to email the artists’ managers and agents. When he got to London a week later, Oyewole and his crew booked the show through a flurry of emails, iChats, and Skype conversations. All told, it took two weeks to pull the festival together. “We know how to get stuff done,” says Oyewole, 25.
Still, it’s rare for bloggers to assemble shows, even if Oyewole has related experience. He helped pull together last year’s EmSee battle at Fillmore Silver Spring. When he was a student at Boston College, he, Coleman and Marshall launched a blog and radio show that quickly became popular on campus. So while Oyewole made his name as a blogger, Trillectro might be his next step. “I prefer to do this; this kind of stuff brings out the passion,” he says. “But we really don’t know what’s next. That’s how I got to where I am, by keeping my options open and seeing where it takes me.”
The Trillectro festival begins 1 p.m., Aug. 11 at Fairgrounds, 1299 Half St. SE (across from the Navy Yard Metro station). Tickets are $30 – $100.
Source: Marcus Moore, Washington City Paper
