The man who just “won” this year’s SXSW Music Festival has been anointed Madison’s Pumpkin King for 2016.
Rapper Anderson .Paak, who blew the Austin crowd away en route to scoring SXSW’s Grulke Award for best developing U.S. artist last spring, has been tabbed to headline Freakfest, Madison’s annual fam-friendly downtown Halloween music fest (set for Oct. 29 on State Street).
The artist formerly known as Breezy Lovejoy has enjoyed a delayed but meteoric rise that’s quite literally straight outta Compton — as in his triumphant six-song turn on Dr. Dre’s Grammy-nominated 2015 album of that name.
Since that career-making collaboration, a gig that saw .Paak’s name parked in the liner notes alongside the likes of Kendrick Lamar and Eminem, he’s been one of the hottest things going, swiveling heads and beats with his old-school, smooth as “Suede” jazz- and R&B-inflected rap. His second album, Malibu, features guest turns/production by ScHoolboyQ, Rapsody, 9th Wonder and The Game. Not bad for a dude who was still playing drums at his California church less than a year ago.
.Paak’s musical ascendance can be traced to a pre-Dre collaboration with Bandcamp phenom Knxwlegde, the hip-hop instrumentalist whose soulful, jazz-inflected beats proved as perfect a match for .Paak’s rap stylings in the video for “Suede” — the tune that brought .Paak to Dre’s attention.
.Paak’s rise has not been as smooth as his voice: The 29-year-old has overcome family difficulties (both his parents ended up in jail during his senior year of high school), an annulled marriage and many years spent as a musical nomad before his vision coalesced.
Freakfest won’t be .Paak’s first stop in Madison — some Madtown music fans will remember that he was the undercard opener for Watsky when he played the Barrymore in November 2014 — but he and his uber-talented backup band are obviously riding quite a bit higher this time, having blown the doors off everyone from NPR to the BET Awards. (He’s even become an unexpected defender of the 2Pac and The Notorious B.I.G.’s rap legacies.)
Bottom line: You might want to get your tickets early. They go on sale for $10 on Sept. 9 at madfreakfest.com.
Getting down and spooky with one of rap and R&B’s rising stars is the adult equivalent of getting a king-sized Snickers bar in your treat bag.
