Kid Sister

Travis Barker, A-Trak Rock Hollywood Gig With Kid Cudi, Lil Jon

11 Mar 2010 11:40:00 EST

Duo played second-ever live show Wednesday night.
By Kelly Marino

LOS ANGELES — On Wednesday night, Travis Barker and DJ A-Trak played their second-ever public show together — and although the set was quick, it did not disappoint, featuring guest spots from Lil Jon, Kid Cudi and Kid Sister.




	Travis Barker, DJ A-Trak Play Hollywood

Performing in front of a sold-out crowd at Hollywood's Roxy Theatre, the duo hit the ground running the minute they took to the stage. With a set that lasted a little under an hour, the duo treated fans to a medley of songs that included remixes by A-Trak (who also serves as Kanye West's concert DJ), Barker's own remixes and new material.

Though there wasn't any interaction with the fans, the crowd didn't seem to mind. Instead they stood and watched in awe as Barker and A-Trak opened the show with Jay-Z's "99 Problems" and continued to please the crowd with remixes of Nas' "Made You Look," Kanye's "Stronger" and Snoop Dogg's "I Wanna Rock."

And just as the energy was peaking, fans were treated to a guest appearance by Lil Jon, who took to the stage with his signature sunglasses halfway into the set and performed his song "Outta Your Mind."But as just as quickly as he appeared on the stage he was gone, teasing fans and leaving them wanting more.

As the night went on Travis Barker and A-Trak continued to perform an array of tunes, adding a little more of a rock feel to the show with Rage Against the Machine's "Bulls on Parade," the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Heads Will Roll." Each song lasted for only a few minutes before spilling into the next. The set then transitioned into more dance-oriented material, with songs like Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up" and Daft Punk's "Robot Rock."

Not surprisingly, the set ended with a bang: opening act Kid Sister returned to the stage, with Barker playing drums and A-Trak spinning behind her. Wearing '80s-inspired attire, she pumped up the crowd with some booty-shaking moves while performing her hit "Pro Nails."

But when Kid Cudi took the stage, the crowd exploded. Performing "Pursuit of Happiness," fans sang along at the top of their lungs while Cudi jumped around the entire stage, high-fiving fans lucky enough to be standing in front.

The show ended just shy of midnight, with A-Trak waving to and thanking the crowd and Travis Barker handing his drums sticks off to a screaming fan before walking off stage. As fans scattered to the exit doors, VIPs headed backstage — including Amber Rose sans Kanye West.

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Metallica Shred At 'Secret' Show; Asher Roth Jokes: SXSW '09

21 Mar 2009 10:39:00 EDT

Metal legends rip through not-so-secret South by Southwest gig.
By James Montgomery

AUSTIN, Texas — These Volsung dudes could be huge some day. They sound exactly like Metallica.

Sorry, that was a bit of a South by Southwest in-joke. See, in the weeks leading up to SXSW 2009, the folks behind the fest tried to pull a fast one on fans, listing Volsung, a metal band from "Somewhere, Norway," in the 10 p.m. slot of the "Guitar Hero: Metallica" launch party.

It didn't take long for the speculation to start. It seemed most people believed that Volsung were, in fact, actually Metallica, and as SXSW drew closer, the rumors of a full-blown performance began to swirl. The whispers grew into a roar when the "Guitar Hero" folks released a poster touting an appearance by "members of Metallica."

And it all came to a head Friday night at Stubb's, before a capacity crowd inside and an even bigger throng outside, mostly packed into a nearby parking garage, craning their necks to get a glimpse of the action. Then, just before 10 p.m., after opening sets by the Silversun Pickups and some dudes playing "Rock Band," the lights dimmed, the house speakers began to vibrate with the strains of an epic, Ennio Morricone instrumental, and lo and behold — Metallica appeared, live and in the flesh.

They didn't waste a second either, launching headlong into a scorching version of "Creeping Death" from 1984's Ride the Lightning, then power-shifting into a down and dirty take on "For Whom the Bell Tolls." Of course, pretty much everyone expected all of this to happen (at one point, frontman James Hetfield jokingly welcomed the audience to "the worst-kept secret in rock and roll"), but it didn't matter in the least: Fans inside — and out — went berserk, tossing devil horns, pumping fists and singing along to every word.

Feeding off that energy — and perhaps getting a kick out of playing what, for them, was basically a small club gig — Metallica never took the foot off the accelerator. For the next 90 minutes, they riffed hard and fast through classics like "Harvester of Sorrow," "Sad but True," "One" and (of course) "Master of Puppets." They implored the audience to "give us your best" (truly, no massively successful band pleads with the audience as much as Metallica do) and appeared to have an absolute blast, even when they were battling problems with the house equipment.

It was those rather imperfect moments — the odd dead mic, a detuned guitar or two — that gave the Stubb's gig a sort of underdog charm, no small feat when a band of Metallica's caliber is involved. And seemingly, even the band sensed it. Lars Ulrich traded banter with fans between songs, Robert Trujillo asked for a good place to grab some BBQ, and even the normally serious Kirk Hammett managed to crack a smile or two. But no one got it more than Hetfield, which probably explains why, before launching into "Harvester," he paused, cracked a smile and got into full Volsung character, telling the crowd, "Vee are a young, struggling bandt from Norvay, and vee vant to get signed."

James Hetfield doing impressions. You don't get that at your average Metallica gig.

It wasn't your average Metallica gig up the street at Club de Ville, either, though it certainly was just as packed. Rather, it was a grab-bag assortment of cutting-edge (read: Day-Glo Ray-Bans and DJs with MacBooks) hip-hop, featuring plenty of bleep-boop, and sets from pint-sized British MC Lady Sovereign, sassy Chi-Town rapper Kid Sister and — most notably — dunderheaded party master Asher Roth.

Currently riding high — pun intended — on the strength of his ode to intoxication "I Love College," Roth was the de facto headliner of the night (despite the fact that Kid Sister actually was), though it's entirely possible he was not aware of this. Flanked by a hypeman and backed by a nerdy DJ and a live drummer, he delivered a laconic, stoned-to-the-bone set, heavy on the weed humor ("Blunt Cruising") and crude double entendres ("Lark on My Go-Kart"), but it got the crowd jumping nonetheless.

While he might look like he just stumbled out of bed, Roth is no slacker. His rhymes are deft, funny and tight (even if he does sound an awful lot like Eminem), and he's got a wicked sense of humor too — as evidenced during a mid-set skit in which he flicked through a fictional mix CD and smoked an imaginary joint (which he passed to the audience).

Of course, he closed with "College," a subtly brilliant anthem that could make him a very big star (or at least earn him a lifetime of dorm-room gigs). He and his crew broke into a well-sequenced two-step shuffle, with huge, slightly stupid grins plastered across their faces. And though his jokey style and organic music might have stuck out like a pair of sore thumbs on this electro-heavy night, there's no denying that Roth was the biggest star on the entire bill. By a mile. Whether or not he chooses to seize the opportunities available to him remains to be seen.

But that's better left for another time ... after all, this was Friday night at SXSW. Metallica cracked jokes. Asher Roth was let loose in one of the biggest college towns in the U.S. Welcome to the weekend.

MTV News is Live & Mobile at the South by Southwest festival this week, with blogs, articles plus live and on-demand video of all the bands, gigs and BBQ!

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Livin' Lollapalooza

04 Aug 2008 09:16:00 EDT

We covered Grant Park from all angles, including backstage. Spend some time in the Chicago sun with the hottest acts at Lollapalooza 2008.
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Kid Sister, Teyana Taylor Usher In A New Wave Of Female MCs

10 Mar 2008 08:00:00 EDT

While Foxy, Kim and Remy are making headlines, these ladies are making music.
By Jayson Rodriguez

NEW YORK — Where the ladies at? With Foxy Brown in jail, Remy Ma on trial and Rah Digga missing in action (not to mention Lil' Kim and Lauryn Hill making headlines for anything but new music), it seems that question has been asked over and over again in hip-hop circles. And the response is getting smaller and smaller.

Sure, Eve had a hit single last year, but then she never followed it up with an album. The project was delayed, then scheduled to include new tracks, and now the release date is back to TBD status.

But instead of looking for answers from the big names, maybe we should focus on the smaller ones. Then we'll finally see where the ladies are.

Lil Mama ushered in a breath of fresh air last year with "Lip Gloss," and her balance of rapping and singing seems to be a sign of the times for so-called "femcees" nowadays. Like her, Kid Sister and Teyana Taylor are both able crooners and rhyme spitters.

"It's hard to explain a style when it's just natural," Taylor told MTV News about her mix of singing and rapping. "Since I was little, I always wanted to dress myself, so I'd just throw something on and just do me. It's like when you shop, you just see something, and you just pick it up. And I like to collect things from different places, not just one set place. And same thing for my album — it's no set genre. It's from so many different places. So many different producers came through together to do it. So when you hear the album, you'll see what I'm about. I'm not big, so it's hard to explain what I'm about when no one has heard the music."

Taylor, who was first made famous in an episode of MTV's "My Super Sweet 16," is backed by Pharrell Williams of the Neptunes. Williams mixed his spacey beats with Taylor's unique sense of artistry for her debut, From a Planet Called Harlem, due May 20 on Interscope Records.

The first single, "Google Me," produced by Jazze Pha is already drawing a buzz. But Taylor said the Pharell-produced "Switch It Up" is likely to draw even more attention.

"It's crazy," Taylor said. "It's cra-zee. Like, it's so hype it's gonna make you want to move, breakdance or vogue, whatever it is. It makes you want to do it all."

Like Taylor, Chicago native Kid Sister got an assist from a big-name producer. Kanye West's DJ A-Track is Kid Sister's boyfriend, and 'Ye hopped on the remix to her hit "Pro Nails," taking the already rising star into a new stratosphere. The guest verse brought the attention of many hip-hop fans, and soon Kid Sister's sound broke out from the Windy City house-music scene and merged with downtown Manhattan's hipster-hop scene.

To hear Kid Sister tell it, her mixture of house, hip-hop and dance, is a natural representation of who she is.

"I come from a biracial family. My mom is white, my dad's black, and I like to reflect that in what I do creatively," Kid Sister told MTV News. "I think it would just be a disservice to myself to put out there anything that's not authentically me. So it's just me.

"My dad was in a Talking Heads cover band, a black man," she continued. "Wow. [Laughs.] And then my mom was into John Philip Sousa marches. And they [both] liked Paul Simon."

Her summer 2008 debut, Koko B. Ware (a nod to the professional wrestling she and her brother, Josh from Flosstrodamus, watched as children), will have danceable tunes, Kid Sister said, but she's also interested in a mix of music that may surprise some.

She recruited producers Infamous and Develop, who worked with Cam'ron's Diplomats crew, to man the boards on some records.

"The Dipset beats sound like something you can kill somebody to," she joked. "It's for the killers and the drug dealers. But, like, in Chicago, you can go kill somebody and then do the vogue dance afterward.

"Chicago house is like disco house," she added. "But the thing about it that's really interesting is that you could be the hardest dude, you could be so street and they're like, 'This is my cut!' "

Hopefully, these two ladies' future will generate more hits than headlines. Both admitted they try not to think in terms of gender, but with so few females artists in the industry, sometimes it's impossible not to.

"I feel pressure in that women get pegged, like, 'Kid Sister did my nails; Lil Mama did my lips,' " Kid Sister said. "People scrutinize women because there's so few of us doing what we do, so it's easy to pick on the meek and the few. But me, personally, I don't feel affected by anyone else. I feel like I have the freedom to do whatever I want to do."

Taylor agreed, adding that while she's trying to establish herself, she has one eye on the competition and hopes they have one eye on her too — but for support, not challenges.

"Anything that's creative, I'm down with it," Taylor said. "I support it. Especially another young broad coming from where I'm coming from, doing what I'm doing. I feel like it's dope. We need to support each other. We're all young.

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