Action Bronson kicked off the final season of Vans House Parties. The Queens, NY rapper/TV star/author curated the line up, which consisted of B.A.G. and Darnell Williams. House Parties are free RSVP events where the headliner picks the supporting acts, one of which is yet unsigned. There were tattoos by Bert Krak of Smith Street Tattoo in Brooklyn, as well as free House of Vans merch, and best of all, free Goose Island Beer!
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A DJ warmed up the crowd for West Coast rap duo B.A.G. B.A.G. consists of Blimes Brixton and Gifted Gab, two rappers who have their own solo things going on as well. Bouncing around the stage in matching checkerboard outfits, they reminded me of a hard core Salt-N-Pepa on steroids.
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Up next was Darnell Williams. Not the actor, the rapper, from South Central Los Angeles via Detroit. He was very excited to be playing his first Brooklyn show. He recalled living in Brooklyn for a minute and how hot it could get here. He proceeded to heat up Vans when he sampled Biggie and had the crowd scream out the “Damn” part of “Warning.”
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House of Vans will be closing its doors in September of 2018 and Action Bronson was picked to kick off the stellar lineup of artists for their Vans House Parties concert series. The rapper/actor/author/chef put the crowd in an instant frenzy. Between tracks he took time to autograph a fan’s copy of his new book Fuck, That’s Delicious: An Annotated Guide to Eating Well. He made sure the crowd stayed hydrated on this hot night by tossing water bottles into the crowd along with fluorescent colored hoodies promoting his most recent album Blue Chips 7000. He brought out some musicians including a saxophonist who had Bronson doing the salsa. He got the whole crowd to chant “GO MEXICO!” as he wailed on the sax. Who knew they would go on to beat the reigning World Cup champions Germany? He had a guitarist take lead for a cover of Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes.” They tried getting the crowd to sing along, but the masses didn’t quite have the chops to hit Gabriel’s high notes. He ended the show with his hit “Easy Rider” as he jumped into the crowd and up onto the media platform I was standing on. He returned backstage in a traveling, chanting, mosh pit/conga line. That was something I have never seen before. The evening was not completely over. As Pink Floyd’s “Money” played, not only did Bronson have more shirts to toss out, he had cheese steaks. He started by throwing them out one at a time, but this was way too time consuming, so he decided to just chuck the entire box into the crowd! I was not fortunate enough to get my hands on one but I did hear rave reviews from those who did.
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Article: Michael DiGiovanni
