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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Jen Diaz/Hot 97

Lauryn Hill.

Hot 97 Summer Jam: Nicki Minaj, Young Jeezy, Rick Ross, J. Cole, Wale, Meek Mill, DJ Khaled, Waka Flocka, Trey Songz, Maino, Big Sean, 2 Chainz, French Montana, Mavado, Tyga, Slaughterhouse (and Nas and Lauryn Hill)
MetLife Stadium
Sunday, June 3

Better than: Seeing a Nicki Minaj concert.

In an era of increasing separation and ever-tinier attention spans, it's almost quaint to celebrate a tradition like Hot 97's Summer Jam with 60,000 of your closest friends.

Each year, Summer Jam means a sunny early afternoon heading over to the Meadowlands, the constant threat of rain during the afternoon hours, a few rap songs here and there with rappers featuring other rappers, walking into a chilly night leaving the show, and general ratchetness in the parking lot before, during, and after the concert.

Oh, and drama! Plenty of drama—which, in the years since Jay-Z vs. Nas evaporated, has turned into yawn vs. shrug.

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French Montana, flush from having just inked the dotted line with P. Diddy's Bad Boy label, has just stepped out of the Who's Up Next barbershop in Miami's South Beach area. But while Bad Boy is plotting something of a resurgence, having also this year snapped up rapid-fire white rap firebrand Machine Gun Kelly, Montana's spell of being raised in the Bronx has burdened him with that most clichéd challenge of bringing hip-hop back to New York. It's a millstone Montana says doesn't bother him—but one he's determined to live up to.

Montana was raised in Morocco (his family moved to New York when he was aged 13), and his ascent to rolling with Puff has been a street-oriented rise. The early 2000s saw him creating his Cocaine City DVD series, which spread in popularity to the point where he was courted and signed in some form by Akon's Konvict label. That didn't work out—and a further blip came when he was passed over for a spot on XXL magazine's roster of 2011 freshmen, a snub that he went on the radio to vent about. But now Montana is Bad Boy certified and riding high off the success of his single "Shot Caller," which on the production tip is something of a tribute to Lords Of The Underground's '90s anthem "Funky Child." We caught up with him to talk about being an early part of the new Bad Boy revolution.

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