Tag Archive for 'Roskilde Festival'

Roskilde 2017: Last Man Standing

Published on 28. 06. 2017 in commentary and criticism and music. Closed Tags: , .


Barely. Once more, I am covering the Roskilde Festival for the Danish hip hop site Rapspot.dk, this year with the significant difference that I will be doing it dolo. Rapspot has been in decline for a while, a natural result of internet evolution and contributor devolution. Nothing lasts forever and a twenty-year run of it ain’t half bad. As for Roskilde, this year will mark twenty-five since I first attended the festival and I still find it equally nourishing for mind and spirit. Although life makes it increasingly harder, I hope this won’t be my last time on the green.

In the meantime, however, sit back and enjoy my barebones coverage of Nas, Solange, Gucci Mane, Ice Cube, Seun Kuti, and much more over the next few days. It is happening over at Rapspot, in Danish, and on Twitter @metabunker in English.

That photo? Erm, that’s your correspondent caught partially unawares by my man Klaus Køhl Saturday night at the 2003 festival. Still one of the best I’ve attended.

Back at Roskilde

Published on 04. 07. 2016 in commentary and criticism, hype & linkage and music. Closed Tags: , , .


I spent parts of the last few days at the Roskilde Festival covering its hip hop programme for the Danish hip hop website Rapspot. I unfortunately missed most of the two first days, but managed to catch some great music on Friday and Saturday. At this stage of post-Brexit chaos, it was particularly great to see some of London’s finest uniting us in mosh. Fantastic.

If you read Danish, my coverage is here, here, and here. Astrid Maria B. Rasmussen, who took the above photo of Stormzy, has posted several great photo galleries from the festival here, here, here, and here (graffiti).

The Week

Published on 05. 07. 2015 in comics and cartooning, journal, music and pictorial arts. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , .


It’s been forever since I did one of these. Such is the half dormant life of this blog. But anyway, the itch is still occasionally there so here we go.

The above video was made a few months ago to coincide with the opening of the Sansovino Frames exhibition at the National Gallery. We had just successfully acquired the beautiful Venetian (non-Sansovino) frame which now adorns Titian’s Allegory of Prudence, partly through crowdfunding, and which features in the clip. I think it encapsulates well some of the very real pleasures of working with great artworks: the fact that details count; the kind of holistic thinking the works demand of you when you plan their display; and not least the passion and expertise that they demand. I appear for a brief moment and contribute nothing, but do watch the video for the insight it gives into our framing department and the great work Peter Schade and his staff do there.

OK, here are some links:

  • London Art Week. I haven’t yet really done the rounds, but I did have a chance to look at this drawing attributed to Sebastiano del Piombo. I’m unsure about the attribution, but it doesn’t make it any less beautiful. And while we’re talking Sebastiano, there’s what I do believe is bona fide painting by him in Christie’s day sale.
  • Mikkel Sommer. A rising star on the Danish comics scene. He hasn’t yet delivered a work really delivering on his great talent, but if he keeps dropping gems like this brilliant GIF he’ll keep at least this reader watching him.
  • Roskilde 2015. No, I’m not there this year, sadly, but if you read Danish, you can follow the coverage of the hip hop at the festival by my homies at Rapspot here. Prominent in the line-up was El-P and Killer Mike’s by now ubiquitous-in-hipsterdom-but-no-less-awesome-for-that project Run the Jewels. They surely killed it, if their performance last weekend at Glastonbury is anything to go by.

    • Roskilde 2013 in Retrospect

    Published on 18. 07. 2013 in journal, music and pictorial arts. Closed Tags: .

    Kendrick Lamar by Kenneth Nguyen


    It’s been two weeks now since the Roskilde Festival. Two busy weeks with lots happening. It was another good year, however, not the least for hip hop, with a program focused on coastal innovation, from Kendrick Lamar to El-P and Killer Mike to Mykki Blanco and Azealia Banks. The notable misfire was Rihanna lip synching her way through a boring set Saturday night. Anyway, our coverage at Rapspot can be sampled here, and these are my contributions: Mykki Blanco, Killer Mike and El-P, Linkoban, and Kid Koala as well as my usual rap up commentary, which I’ve just uploaded. All in Danish. I’m sorry.

    Thanks for a great festival, everyone – and props to the graff people who celebrated their 15th anniversary at the festival this year with another great burn on the festival walls.

    See you next year?

    It’s About that Time, Roskilde!

    Published on 04. 07. 2013 in journal and music. Closed Tags: , .

    Photo from Roskilde 2012 by KenYen


    Once again, you know where you’ll find me this weekend. At the Roskilde Festival, covering the hip hop acts and assorted as part of the RapSpot team. So tune in over there, and witness the strength of sneed knowledge.

    Big K.R.I.T. Interviewed

    Published on 19. 07. 2012 in interviews and music. Closed Tags: , , .


    At the Roskilde Festival I had the pleasure of interviewing one of the up-and-coming stars of Southern hip hop, Big K.R.I.T., who blessed the festival with an awesome concert on Sunday afternoon, closing the show after his country cuzzin Yelawolf had torn up his part of the program. A great afternoon. Check out the interview, filmed and edited by Kenneth Nguyen for Rapspot, above and visit K.R.I.T.’s website where you can download several of his mixtapes for free.

    And keep checking for him. It’s great hip hop music, going places.

    Wrapping Roskilde 2012

    Published on 15. 07. 2012 in hype & linkage, journal and music. Closed Tags: , .


    Right, it was a great festival, as usual. A little unusual for me though, in that I was commuting from Copenhagen every day and didn’t spend nearly as much time in Roskilde as I normally do on account of my family. This means I’ll forego my usual analysis of the festival as a whole this year (here’s the last one I did) and be content to direct you to the coverage I contributed at Rapspot.

    I reviewed Blitz the Ambassador, The Abyssinians, Sage Francis, Dominique Young Unique, Yelawolf, and Big K.R.I.T.

    Soon enough a video interview with K.R.I.T., conducted by yours truly, will also be available. I’ll let you know here and via Twitter.

    And the rest of the crew delivered the goods more promptly than ever, so hop over to Rapspot and check it out. It’s all in Danish, but foreven for those who don’t read our guttural there are plenty of images, as well as a few select videos — including one of the stagediving incident during Yelawolf’s unhinged concert.

    Photo of Yelawolf by KenYen.

    Roskilde

    Published on 06. 07. 2012 in journal and music. Closed Tags: , .


    Yes, I haven’t been posting a whole lot here for some time, and it will be a while longer because this weekend I’m at the Roskilde Festival reporting for Rapspot, as I have for a number of years. Last night featured Janelle Monae’s showstopper of a performance from which the above image by my man Klaus Køhl is taken. Myself and the rest of the Rapspot team are reporting on that and much more over at the place where we dwell.

    Normal programming to resume presently.

    Roskilde Festival 2011: No Hangover

    Published on 04. 07. 2011 in music. Closed Tags: , , .


    Yes, I missed the festival this year, damn it. Would have loved to wyle out with the Odd Future crew, peeped Atmosphere doing their new sh*t, and checked for the Big Boi/Janelle Monáe double feature, etc. And just to have been there, as usual. But it was not to be.

    Fortunately, others were, and as usual my peeps at Rapspot delivered comprehensive coverage of the hip hop and -related events at the festival, with more to come in the next few days. Drop by there and check it out.

    Photo of Tyler the Creator (OFWGKTA) by Kenneth Nguyen for Rapspot.