Earl Sweatshirt & MIKE — Brooklyn Paramount, July 8
On July 8, Louis Tomlinson plays Madison Square Garden. Also on July 8, Earl Sweatshirt and MIKE play Brooklyn Paramount. Both shows start at 7pm. The July 8 split defines cleanly two different versions of a Wednesday night during the World Cup knockout stage.
Earl Sweatshirt earned his position in contemporary hip-hop through a body of work that operated entirely outside the mainstream without ever conceding ground to it. The Odd Future alumnus who disappeared to Samoa as a teenager before returning to make Some Rap Songs and I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside is now the standard-bearer for a kind of rap that treats the listener as someone willing to do work. The lyrics are dense, self-excavating, and built on jazz samples and left-field production that refuses resolution.
MIKE is one of the most prolific and critically respected underground MCs currently working. His output — dozens of projects released at a pace that outruns conventional release strategy — is characterized by lo-fi production, stream-of-consciousness lyricism, and a directness that cuts through the surface of what most hip-hop is willing to say.
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Brooklyn Paramount is the right room for this bill. Three thousand people is large enough to create genuine crowd energy and small enough that every person in the room is there because they specifically chose to be. The venue's architecture — the restored 1920s entertainment palace with its ornate ceiling — adds gravity that a generic mid-size venue would not. The crowd at a Brooklyn Paramount hip-hop show on a night like this will be committed and knowledgeable in the way that arena crowds, diluted by casual ticket buyers, sometimes are not.
Downtown Brooklyn makes the logistics easy. The venue is walkable from Barclays Center and served by the Atlantic Terminal transit hub. After the show, the subway gets you anywhere in the city in a single ride. See the full Brooklyn Paramount schedule during the tournament.
Get Earl Sweatshirt & MIKE Tickets — Brooklyn Paramount →
July 8 — official Ticketmaster