Brook Bobbins

Check out our slideshow from the party.

Fool's Gold Day Off: French Montana, Danny Brown, Brothers Macklovitch, Just Blaze, Flosstradamus, Flatbush Zombies, Nick Catchdubs, Ricky Blaze, Party Supplies, #BEEN #TRILL, Telephoned, and more
City Winery
Monday, September 3

Better than: Rain.

Last year, free shows flooded the city, with each night bringing mostly the same crowd but different publicists; an endless bacchanalia of sights and sounds and RSVP emails. Drink taps flowed like fire hoses; beautiful women instinctively flocked. Heineken served hot dogs and beer ahead of shows by Kanye (in a Brooklyn bank-turned-arena), J. Cole (at the Bowery Ballroom) and Pusha T (at Santos); they also stuck TV on the Radio (atop a downtown billboard. Bacardi had Childish Gambino in Terminal 5 and Ciara at South Street Seaport. Red Bull hosted Dipset, Black Moon, Wu-Tang, Mobb Deep and Slick Rick in their respective boroughs. Jadakiss did an entire set amongst shoppers at the Apple Store in June; a few months later, Nike gave Nas a microphone while Carmelo Anthony holograms seemingly exploded out of the Hudson. 2012, in comparison, has been... quiet, don't-wake-the-baby level quiet.

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Action Bronson w/Flatbush Zombies, Meyhem Lauren, Tanya Morgan
Music Hall of Williamsburg
Thursday, August 23

Better than: Hip-hop actually dying back when Nas called it in 2006.

What was Action Bronson going to do?

Last night, around midnight, the Flatbush Zombies, accompanied by A$AP Rocky, left the Music Hall of Williasmburg stage after whipping the crowd into an orgiastic frenzy of adrenaline. Crowd surfers numbered in the double digits; mosh pits sprang up like sudden whirlpools in a tempest. The energy was so high that the Zombies decided to film an impromptu video. How could Flushing behemoth Action Bronson hope raise the bar?

Well, after Halloween comes Christmas and Bronson played Rap Santa. He threw what looked to be about half a pound of high-grade marijuana, split up into dime bags, into the crowd. He also gave out shoes and steaks. You are not misreading that sentence. Steaks—two, from the rapper's favorite restaurant, Peter Luger's, and wrapped up nicely to go—were tossed into the crowd. As you can imagine, the crowd was pleased by these shows of generosity. They nearly lost their collective goddamn minds for good, some in the grand pursuit of weed and others just reacting to the sheer spectacle, a Robin Hood-slash-Henry VII figure committing a crime for the good of the people.

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Cam'ron w/Flatbush Zombies, Asaad, Reese
The Well
Saturday, July 14

Better than: The Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival.

Mark July 14 on your calendar as another historic date in New York hip-hop's current growth spurt. On this day, people from all corners of the city gathered in a semi-legal warehouse yard in Bushwick to witness what few could believe: King Jaffi Joe/Young Flea/Rico/Killa Cam himself was to take the stage for the first installment of the brilliantly titled "Whippin' Work" concert series, performing alongside buzzing upstarts Flatbush Zombies, Reese and Asaad. Folks arrived as early as 4 p.m. to ensure prime real estate for this rare occurrence, and a heavy cloud of dank hung over the yard despite bouncers searching hats, wallets, and shoes TSA-style at the door.

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Nate "Igor" Smith

Juice from Flatbush Zombies.

Cerebral Ballzy w/Flatbush Zombies, The Gospels, Jasmine Solano
The Space
Friday, June 22

Better than: Getting caught in the rain.

On a humid Friday at a new, still-raw, skate-ramp-slash-stage-equipped Lower East Side space (called, er, The Space), the answer to the timeless question "Is Brooklyn in the house?" was answered by Kings County's own Flatbush Zombies and Cerebral Ballz, who blew away a sweaty crowd of skaters, punks and hip-hop heads.

Up-and-coming collective The Gospels were the first band to play; even though the band was mostly unknown collective, the crowd was into it, shouting and moshing like Bad Brains had just hopped on stage. In between sets, the lovely Jasmine Solano spun records and kept the crowd from melting into puddles topped by tank tops, snap backs and cutoffs. (The Space's backyard helped, too.)

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She's no longer an Internet phenomenon, but the moody singer Lana Del Rey has turned into something of an infatuation for rappers, who are more than eager to collaborate and canoodle with her. In honor of her headlining a series of shows at Irving Plaza this week, here's a short list of her notable hip-hop connections.

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@RMag7/Twitter

Slaughterhouse w/Flatbush Zombies
Best Buy Theater
Thursday, March 29

Better than: Spending the next few nights in the bookings alongside Joe Budden.

There's Joell Ortiz. Here comes Crooked I. Royce just bopped onstage... but where's... uh oh. "Where's Budden at?" shouted the tipsy Nets hat next to me. Two songs into last night's Slaughterhouse show at the Best Buy Theater, Joey's glaring absence was addressed. Royce announced that the police had arrested Joe Buddens just prior to him coming on stage due to a warrant from an "unpaid ticket from 2007." Jersey had came ready to rep, and people started chanting, "Joey! Joey! Joey!" after the announcement. The NYPD waited over five years to execute that petty warrant; you'd think they would've at least waited until after this momentous night in Budden's career to place him under arrest.

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Flatbush Zombies: Zombie Juice, Meechy Darko, and Erick Arc Elliott. (Click to enlarge.)

The word "Brooklyn" conjures up images of all types of illy shit—gold fronts (not grills), bubble coats, designer "wears," dreads smoking bud like it was legal. Newcomers Flatbush Zombies managed to incorporate all of the aforementioned BK traits into their music and its accompanying visuals while injecting some of their own brand of rap.

Though it'd be easy to dismiss the trio as gimmicky, you can always tell (least I can) when a group of friends organically form a group with a specific sound/style as opposed to artists forming a contrived crew that will probably be defunct in a year's time. Flatbush Zombies is without a doubt the former. Upon entering their headquarters (located in Flatbush, of course), you get the feeling these kids would be doing exactly what they're doing whether they were making music together or not. In fact, music almost played as the background to our initial interactions. Soon enough, though, the convo in the smoke-filled room did turn to their music and backgrounds. Here's what Meechy Darko, Zombie Juice and Erick Arc Elliott had to say about the Zombie, er, afterlife...

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