Common to perform for annual Springfest concert this Friday

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Author: Damian Mendieta

 

Rapper “Common” will be performing this Friday, March 30 at the Hillside Theater for Occidental’s annual Springfest concert. This is the fifth consecutive year that a hip-hop artist will perform at Springfest. Artists in past years include Snoop Dogg, Nas and Lupe Fiasco. 

This decision followed an OSL survey last year in which the majority of students indicated that they would prefer a hip-hop artist.

According to Springfest organizer Redd Barua-Norton (junior), although the Programming Board had hundreds of choices, budget limitations and Coachella’s radius clause hindered the selection of musical acts. 

Artists who perform at Coachella are prohibited from playing in the Los Angeles area from the time they sign their contract with Goldenvoice, the company that runs Coachella, until thirty days after their performance in Indio, California, although exceptions have been made. 

For the sake of keeping up demand for certain artists, Goldenvoice has made it difficult for the Programming Board to find aSpringfest act.

“[The radius clause] puts a big limitation on who we can bring to the school because [Coachella is] bringing all the best names,” Barua-Norton said. “That really impacts who we can bring.” 

Barua-Norton admitted that some students had requested a female artist this year, but a variety of limitations did not make it possible. 

“It was hard to find a female act that people would know and enjoy,” Barua-Norton said.  “We threw out hundreds of names from Ellie Goulding to Rihanna, but [they were] extremely expensive in some instances and unavailable in others.”

According to Barua-Norton, other factors that figured into the selection of artists were their current popularity and widespread recognition, while keeping to the students’ musical preferences. The Programming Board members then draft a list of top choices and begin the long process of cross-checking logistics and availability. 

“We start with our top choices, and it’s not based on personal preference. We’re thinking who does the school want to see,” Barua-Norton said. “We’re considering things like have they put out an album recently, are they bringing one out soon, do they have a song that’s on the radio right now that’s really popular.”

The Programming Board also had to bear in mind the quality of each potential Springfest artist’s live performances.  

“It could be someone like Ke$ha who’s really popular on the radio, but when it gets down to it, she’s not going to be a good live performer,” Barua-Norton said.

 Student responses to Common have been mostly positive, said Barua-Norton, yet he acknowledged that some students expressed a desire for an electronic artist instead.

“Another big genre popular on campus is electronic music, and there were a lot of options available for that,” Barua-Norton said. “But since we did A-Trak in the Fall we thought maybe we should diversify a little bit.”

Furthermore, selecting Common allowed Occidental to deal with student complaints about lyrics and references in last year’s performance. 

“It was a great show and everyone had fun, but people had a problem with some of [Snoop Dogg’s] lyrics. There’s a lot of misogynistic lyrics in there full of drug references,” Barua-Norton said. “We wanted someone we wouldn’t have the problem with.”

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