This is a post about Das Racist’s Sasquatch! Festival blurb, which turns out to be just a minor variation on every DR press blurb, but is still amusing enough to post here. Also, our obligatory “Das Racist Is Being Das Racist Again” post of the week. Skip it if you prefer ACTUAL PRESSING NEWS.
For years Das Racist’s press packet and MySpace bio has described the duo as having met at “Bard Art College in Massachusetts,” which clearly does not exist, especially considering Victor Vazquez ’06 and Himanshu Suri ’07 (the third dude in that photo is “hype man and spiritual advisor” Dap) pretty much definitely met at “Wesleyan University in Connecticut.”
Okay, sure, this is Das Racist we’re talking about. I brought up the subject when I interviewed the two for the Argus last year, which invited them to fuck with me/readers/everyone even further:
Argus: Your MySpace tells us you guys met at “Bard Art College in Massachusetts.” What’s the deal with that?
VV: That was a mistake on the part of our PR team. I actually went to Sarah Lawrence.
HS: Yeah, I should change that in our press packet. Victor and I met at a support group for discontent minorities at liberal arts colleges that we both came across while perusing Craigslist’s rants and raves section to see when the race war will start. I went to Oberlin at the time, though transferred to Bard after my freshman year when a professor called me a “dune coon” and I just couldn’t take it anymore.
The point: Sasquatch!—the annual Washington state music festival whose impressive current lineup includes such notable highlights as Flying Lotus, Beach House, newly reformed Archers of Loaf and Guided by Voices, The Head & The Heart (playing here tomorrow), and, of course, Das Racist—apparently isn’t in on the joke. Keelin Ryan ’14 sent in the festival’s hilarious semi-fictionalized bio blurb clearly written by the duo themselves, which, among other things, continues propagating this mythical (read: nonexistent) Bard Art College. Here’s the full blurb. I enjoy it slightly more than “Rainbow in the Dark” but slightly less than “Combination Pizza Hut & Taco Bell”:
Das Racist is an Art Rap/Freak Folk/World Music duo based in Brooklyn, New York, comprised of Queens-born Himanshu Kumar and San Francisco-born Victor Vazquez. The two met at Bard Art College in Massachusetts, where Victor was Himanshu’s resident advisor in a “Students of Color for Social Justice” themed Freshman year dormitory. After a couple of years of occasional drunken freestyles with each other, Himanshu and Victor decided to record a couple of raps together. The first of which was called “We Made It” and immediately became a hit amongst stupid assholes who like rap from the 1990s and really want that shit to keep happening. The second track was called “Fever” and it was fucking terrible – really bad. Then they made some other songs and then they made “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell” which is the one that everyone likes and then they made some other songs. Their least favorite rappers are: Asher Roth, Matisyahu, Immortal Technique, Ludacris, Talib Kweli, Eminem, Sage Francis, Brother Ali, and Atmosphere. And Asher Roth.
—Addendum One: The group’s MySpace bio has been updated at some point in the past year to reflect that they actually met at “SARAH LAWRENCE BARD POMONA WESLEYAN ART COLLEGE.” I like this one. And considering this same page lists Das Racist’s genre as “Neo-Soul” and “Shoegaze”—I’m not even going to finish this sentence.
—Addendum Two: Das Racist played Manhattan’s Highline Ballroom last week. Here is what CMJ had to say about the show. Whether the review is enthusiastic or scathing depends entirely on whether your view of Das Racist is enthusiastic or scathing:
The entire show was pretty surreal—I have to say I have never been to a concert where the performers gave less of a show and less of a fuck. Onstage, the attitude was derisive and flippant; offstage, it was mostly confused or bemused. But it wasn’t a fiasco; that’s just Das Racist.
—Addendum Three: I scrolled through the Sasquatch! lineup and tried to count every artist that has played at Wes at some point over the past year or so (including Head & The Heart). Let me know what I missed:
- Yeasayer
- Beach House
- Best Coast
- The Head & The Heart
- Twin Shadow
- Das Racist
- Washed Out
Interesting 200 Church shoutout there.