What Went Down: LAKE #2 @ Palate Palette

By Alif Omar Mahfix  •  in Reports
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Bro-ing off to the camera

Image Takashi Aiman

The second LAKE lacked free flow and also the counter-culture cred of Kuning Pening’s flab-baring/Bukowski-desecrating/milk-spraying performance of the night’s launch, but it delivered all the same. While it’s still a little early to accurately point out what the voice of the night is (it had glitch, dubstep and -80bpm swag rap just to name a few), we’d argue that this is exactly what the night was about – arbitrariness.

Kicking off with resident DJ Pradana’s set, we were warmed up to a mixture of chopped-up 70s funk and slowed-down swag rap from the likes of Waka Flocka Flame to A$AP Rocky. The latter got everyone swaggin’ like ignant hood rap sh*t hadn’t gone out of style (it hasn’t). With the crowd building up to respectable size later, Budculture prodigy Takashi Aiman (younger brother of MH) took up the decks and amazed the crowd despite this being his first official performance, proving that talent is hereditary after all.

Myo of Oh Chentaku was up next. Partnering up with DANGERDISKO’s Shaheed Naz, Myo channelled his inner Skrillex and delivered an all-out bro fest that was crazy enough to give the otherwise benign rapper Jin Hackman his first crowd surf experience. Whilst the bropit* grew exponentially in size the longer they played, the crowd unfortunately sizzled to only a handful of people as soon as it was over, which was a shame considering headliner Trytoplay was up next. C’mon bros!

A Syndicate SG signee and a technical god on the AKAI MPD32, Trytoplay’s performance was a taste of what a Syndicate night at Singapore’s Home Club would offer – true beat scene experience. Playing a concoction of his own beats as well as obscure hip hop tracks that’d get LA heads standing up (think Busdriver and Nocando), Trytoplay showed the Malaysian scene a glimpse of what’s happening down south while we are still stuck in a timewarp rut. Fortunately, members of Flow Fam showed up right in time for the set and got sufficientl wyled-out with the rest of us once Trytoplay dished out Crazy88’s ‘Gila’.

As the night was about the end, the lights were turned on bright and airconditioning was off, regardless resident DJ Guibooo closed the night with some banging hip hop for those who stayed. The amount of bros were completely diminished at this point and we were all the better for it.

LAKE is supported by JUICE and organised by Jin Hackman and Al Caponey. The second edition happened last 26 November at Palate Palette. Find photos of the event here.

*brostep + rempit = bropit. A portmanteau describing brostep-induced rempit huddle. We just made that up.