#the next act took me ages to outline but bits are all slotting into place and oh no! they all suck! (jk. i actually love this chapter a lot

[wetcatspellcaster]

WIP Wednesday!

Working on the fallout of Chapter Seven of Pieces has been super fun :))) we're now onto the first encounter since Power Word Kill.

[seita]

— better than (m.)

pairing : iwaizumi/reader

wordcount : 3.087

genre : fluff, smut, pwp

cw : college!au, athletic trainer!iwaizumi

tags : implied age gap (hes 27 reader is in college- age nkt specified. he's older tho), size kink, dom!iwa, pussy job (a lil bit), multiple orgasms, sensitivity kink (if u squint), squirting, fingering, creampie, aftercare.

note : this was just an excuse to write about how iwaizumi is better than any other boy <3 thank u to @toshisins for beta'ing this for me <3

+ summary : you're so tired of dumb college boys who hump and dump, with no stroke game, and can never even try to get you off. that is, until you meet 27 year old iwaizumi hajime.

When you first met Iwaizumi Hajime at the bar near your college campus, you noticed how good looking he was. Well, that was an understatement - he was tall, fit with tanned skin and a confident aura that made you weak in the knees.

You hadn't actually had the courage to approach him, however. Instead, you let some college boy buy you a cheap drink and take you home for some mediocre sex before kicking you out after not even 15 minutes of his reckless humping.

The second time you met him was at the same place. He was sitting at the bar, nursing a glass of whiskey that was almost empty. His back was to you and it gave you a wonderful view of his broad shoulders.

The mediocre lay from the last time you had been there attempted to chat you up again with false confidence, as if he had been the best fuck of your life. Naturally, you weren't having any of his bullshit - he tried to rub your clit like a scratch and sniff, forcing you to pry his hand away from it, there was no chance in hell you were giving him another second of your time. He definitely wasn't the type of guy who took rejection well, if not evident by the way he exploded and went off calling you a wide, colorful variety of names paired with numerous hurtful insults that had tears of humiliation filling your eyes.

“Hey now,” a smooth, deep voice had interrupted his very public spiel, “Don’t punish the girl for your own short comings, if she doesn't wanna fuck you again, don't you think that says more about your abilities as a man?”

The other man sputtered, muttering even more curses before storming out - probably not wanting to tussle with a guy who looked like he benched every second of his day.

There was something about Iwaizumi that just immediately had your heart skipping a beat over him. He was kind, a gentleman, and never seemed desperate or overbearing. He was confident and comfortable with himself and where he was in life.

You quickly learned that Iwaizumi was 27, almost 28 and worked as an athletic trainer so he traveled a lot.

For a while, your relationship seemed one sided with him. You'd text him and he’d reply but he rarely ever actually reached out to you. You tried flirting with him, asking him out for drinks, but it never seemed to pull him in.

It was frustrating. In basically no time at all, you had developed a stupid puppy dog crush on him. You felt like a middle school girl with a crush on a high school senior - like he was never going to give you the time of day. You were simply too young for him.

You eventually stopped trying with him, choosing to delete your message thread with him and continued on with your life.

You went through more college-boy hookups - all of them ending in disaster. Quite frankly, you were fed up with mediocre cock and being treated like shit when they were done with you. It wasn't a nice feeling, being kicked out after they didn't even bother trying to make you cum.

You couldn’t help but wonder what Iwaizumi would be like in bed. He was just so attractive, you knew he had gotten his dick wet more times than he could count. He definitely seemed the type who preferred relationships over hookups.

That's when it occurred to you.

You pulled out your phone and scoured your contacts. It had been a couple weeks since you spoke but you couldn't resist bugging him just one last time. You opened a new message thread with him and quickly typed the question that was now plaguing your mind.

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

It was the question that had changed the course of your relationship with him.

When you asked, it was like everything fell into place. Perhaps it finally relayed to him the interest you had. All that really mattered was the fact he suddenly began talking to you, starting conversations and even venturing into phone calls with you.

You lost all interest in those college boys you once hung out with and went home with to get laid. None of them made you feel the way Iwaizumi could with a simple text message. He was everything a girl could ask for and you were shocked he was single.

Which was why you were quick to ask him on a date, not caring if it made you look desperate -- you practically were. You would be damned if he went off the market while you were busy beating around the bush.

Going on a date with Iwaizumi was like a dream. You were so used to dates at sleazy bars for a couple of drinks just so they could hurry up and take you home for a quick fuck.

Iwaizumi took the time to take you on several dates -- dinner, movies, walks around town to obscure shops he thought you might like, before it finally led to the bedroom.

You had never been nervous with sex but with Iwaizumi it was different. The routine was dumb college boys who usually fawned over your tits for a few minutes before their hard ons became the center of their brain function.

You found yourself completely bare on his bed as he stood at the foot, fully clothed. The way his eyes raked across your body like a lion eyeing its next, delicious meal had you curling in on yourself shyly.

His lips quirked up as your arms came across your breasts, shielding them from his predatory gaze, “Oh now, you know better than that, don’t you? What kind of good girl hides herself, hm? Acted so eager for my cock all this time, now you wanna be shy?”

You gasp, cheeks flushing hot as you register his words -- he’d known you wanted him that badly all this time?

He clicks his tongue, “You didn’t think you were subtle did you? Bet you would have done anything to get your paws on my dick when I got off work early the other day, hm? Showed up at your apartment...you were starin’ real hard at me, I’m right aren’t I?”

You think that to that day, lashes fluttering against your cheeks at the memory. He was wearing loose gray sweats and a muscle tank top that showed his biceps flexing with every movement he made. Your eyes had immediately been drawn, however more down to his crotch instead. Where you could clearly see the outline of his cock through the material.

You had stuffed your little fingers in your cunt for hours that night, thinking about how big he looked -- even soft, couldn’t imagine if he was hard.

“Ah, there you go again,” he muses, snapping you out of your haze, “Maybe if you ask real pretty for me, I’ll give you just what you want.”

“Please,” you immediately gasp, “Want you so much Hajime, i-it hurts. Can’t stop thinkin’ about you…”

“It hurts?” he huffs, finally reaching up to pull his shirt off, leaving you to ogle his pecs and defined abs, which flex as he works on removing his jeans, “Needy little cunt hurts ‘cause you don’t have a nice, fat cock stuffing it full? Such a dramatic little baby. I just know your phone is full of some little college boys’ numbers...why don’t you give them a call?”

You shake your head, “Don’t want them! I just know they’re not as good as you, Hajime, please...please make me cum, I'll do anything?”

“Aw, those idiot little boys don’t know how to make a pretty girl like you cum, is that it?” he asks, climbing onto the bed, making the mattress dip beneath you as he slots himself between your thighs.

“No,” you pout, letting him spread your legs, hands under your knees to open you up to his greedy gaze.

“So compliant with me, you just need a real man to get you off, huh?” he smiles when you nod, “Don’t worry, I’ll take real good care of you.”

Oh, you knew. Just from the way he moved his hips against yours, parting your folds so the head of his cock glided from your clenching little hole, dragging your slick up to your clit -- you just knew that he knew what he was doing.

As you looked between your legs, you felt yourself gush at the sight. His cock was so big, long and fat, drooling precum over your slick little slit, making a mess. He wrapped his fist around his length, making you whimper as his fingers couldn’t even wrap around the girth of him. He slapped his cock against your cunt, groaning at the strings of your slick that clung to him.

“Such a messy cunt,” he sighs, making sure to spank your clit with the head of his cock, laughing breathlessly when your thighs jumped in response to the sudden stimulation, “So fucking eager for me, aren’t you?”

“Uhuh,” you sigh, arching your hips, “Want you to fuck, please, Hajime, need it so bad.”

Much to your dismay, he shakes his head, “Can’t just put it in, pretty baby,” the pet name makes you whimper, “It’ll hurt too much, want you to feel good, yeah?”

“I can handle it,” you breathlessly reassure, canting his hips upward once more to drag your clit against that ridge on the crown of his cock, “Jus’ put it in…”

He doesn’t respond this time but still makes no move to put his cock inside. You’re distracted, however, by the way he now focuses on playing with your clit. Using his cock, he drags the underside across the hard little bud, slaps it once with the tip and before you know it your body is seizing up and you cum.

You let out a string of curses, falling limp against the bed as he works you through the quick high.

“See, that was so easy,” he chuckles, “Those stupid little boys you’ve been letting screw you have no idea what they’re doing, do they? Little cunts so sensitive, I barely even had to do anything to make you cum.”

You’re still trembling when you come down, licking your lips as you give him a dopey little smile and a nod at his cooing. He can’t resist leaning down, and pressing his lips against yours almost desperately. You wrap your arms around his neck, holding him in a deep kiss while his hand finds its way between your legs, two fingers sliding easily into your slick little cunt.

You moan into his mouth, “Hajime ah! ...please, make me cum again.”

“Fuck, you’re so desperate for me,” he hisses through his teeth, “Clenching around my fingers so tight. If I crook my fingers...right here...I bet you’ll just…”

As if on cue, his fingertips hook on your g-spot and you squeal, legs kicking out as you gush around his fingers. He bites his lip and continues to fuck his fingers against that spot, watching your eyes roll back, mouth falling open in a silent cry as you cum for the second time in mere minutes.

“Y-You’re so good, Hajime…” you praise softly, “Fuck, please, give me your cock now!”

He laughs and sits up properly again, pulling his fingers from your cunt. He examines them for a second, slick with your cum and streaks of cream covering the digits before he pops them into his mouth with a moan, savoring the taste of you.

“Alright, baby,” he sighs after pulling out his fingers with a pop!. He grips you beneath the knees again and scoots closer until his tip prods at your entrance. You shudder at the feeling, “Relax for me, pretty girl, let me in…”

Iwaizumi begins pushing in, letting out a soft groan as the head finally buries itself in your cunt. You squeal at the feeling, pulling your knees closer to your chest. The sound of you moaning and whimpering just from his head has him throbbing almost painfully against your tender cunt.

“Almost there…” he huffs, grinning at the sight of your eyes rolling back, “Ah, does that feel good?”

“Yes!” you cry out, “Biggest cock I’ve ever had…’s full…”

“Yeah, baby? It feels so good to finally get your cunt filled with a nice, big cock huh?” he laughs when you nod eagerly, “It’s alright, baby. You won’t have to deal with any mediocre college boys anymore, yeah? This cock’s all yours now…you hear that? All yours.”

Your hand flies down between your legs, finding your clit. He watches with lidded eyes as you circle the little bud and squeal, keeping his hips still to let you cum around his cock nice and hard like you need.

“That’s it, pretty girl,” he hums, “Get yourself off, you know what you need...atta girl…”

You sigh happily at his praise, licking your lips and relax against the bed once more. He takes that as his hint that you were ready, pulling his hips back before roughly slamming back inside your sensitive cunt. It knocks the air from your lungs and you cry out, unable to hold back your noises as he fucks you senseless.

He uses his strength to keep you pinned, forcing your knees against your chest, leaving your cunt open and vulnerable to his pistoning cock. Iwaizumi is so big that the stretch burns every time he sinks back into you, the tip touching your cervix with every calculated thrust, making your entire body ache with the deep pain of it.

But it all feels so good, you’d never been fucked like that before. He knew exactly where to aim his cock, keeping his eyes fixed on your face to watch your reactions, gaze flicking down to where his cock stuffs your cunt full to watch you coat him in your cream whenever he grazes that sweet little spot deep inside you -- a spot no other man had ever tried to find before.

“Feel good?” he questions, though he knew the answer even before you cry it out.

“Ah, yes! Yes, yes, yes!” you sob, “I-It feels so good, Hajime! Fuck, you’re so good at fucking me! You make me feel like a virgin all over again!”

He grins, “Yeah, I know I am, baby.”

His cocky, confident response would have been a turn off with any other man, but with him -- it only made you moan. He had every right to be cocky, he knew just how to use his cock and it was exhilarating.

“You gotta cum again for me, pretty,” he pants, “Cum again, one more time, let go.”

Your throat burns from how much you scream for him, the messy noises coming from him fucking your sloppy cunt should be embarrassing -- you’ve never made such a mess before. You’ve never been so wet, creaming and gushing all the way down his balls.

He didn’t seem to mind, instead he seemed to only be turned on by it.

“I want you to squirt, can you do that for me? Make a pretty mess for me.”

You shake your head, “D-Don’t know how...Can’t.”

“Yes you can, baby,” he purrs, “I can make you, you know that I will.”

You didn’t but, you couldn’t help but nod -- immediately believing him and trusting him. He shifts his knees just slightly, changing his center of balance before his palm curls over your pubic bone, thumb effortlessly finding itself pressed against your clit.

The change in angle lets him hit your g-spot even more brutal than before. You’re immediately arching and crying out for him, eyes rolling back into your head as you feel your orgasm slam into you faster than you’d ever experienced.

Instead of slowing you down, he works you through it, keeping the same, animalistic pace and keeps his thumb pressed against your clit, the rough pad of his thumb has you ogling. If anything, the calloused hands of Iwaizumi proves to you how much of a real man he is, those college boys have nothing on him.

“Give it to me, c’mon,” he urges, clenching his teeth together from the effort it takes to keep going to this hard and fast pace.

“H-Haji…” you cut yourself off as you feel yourself get thrown over the edge again. This time, something feels different and you can’t help but sob, “Please! I-I’m gonna-!”

“That’s it, fuck!” he moans, pace stuttering when you squirt -- your cum splashing against his abs as you shudder and squeal, “Good fuckin’ girl, my good girl. Shit, where do you want me to cum?”

“I-Inside! Fuck, please! I need your cum!” you immediately sob, nails biting in his biceps where you reach out to grip him -- trembling and crying from overstimulation as he works towards his own high.

“You sure? Shit,” you nod, breathless pleas falling from your lips as he finally stills, spilling his load deep inside with a long, drawn-out groan.

Everything is still for a moment and then he’s pulling out with a hiss. You whine at the feeling of your cunt gaping, yearning for his cock again, as his cum leaks out.

He hums, “Sorry about that, let me get you cleaned up.”

You sigh, and close your eyes, trying to relax and let your body settle its trembling. He comes back and quietly works on cleaning the mess between your thighs.

“Alright, up you go,” he sighs, taking your arm and helping you to your feet. You whine and wobble for a second, making him laugh, “You good?”

“Y-Yeah…” you stumble a bit and lean against his dresser, looking for your discarded clothes.

He has his back to you as he strips his sheets. Suddenly, you feel shut out -- like you shouldn’t be there anymore.

He brushes past you to his closet, pulling out some fresh sheets. You feel silly, standing there naked while he gets ready for bed. You bend down and grab your panties, clumsily putting them on before moving to pick up your dress, where it’s crumpled on the floor.

“What’re you doing?” he laughs, “That won’t be comfortable to sleep in.”

“Huh?” you tilt your head to the side and he pauses fluffing his pillows.

“What...you didn’t think I was kicking you out, did you?” he asks and scoffs at the face you make.

“Well I...usually I…” you shift on your feet nervously and he frowns, walking up to you.

He cups your cheeks and makes you look at him, “Jesus, who have you been fucking?” he laughs and gently nudges you towards the bed, “Lay down before you fall over.”

Fighting back a smile, you do as you’re told and sit on the bed, watching as he puts on a fresh pair of sweats, waiting for him to join you. When he does, he immediately pulls you into his arms, pressing a kiss to the top of your head.

“Take a nap, and then we’ll take a shower.”

“It’s 11 at night, it wouldn’t be a nap,” you counter with a giggle.

“Well,” he sighs, “Take a shower in the morning then, and then we can go get breakfast, yeah?”

You smile and relax against him, “Sounds good.”

seita © 2020 | all content and its rights belong to me. do not modify or repost

[elizadoolittlethings]

Mark Gatiss: ‘The League of Gentlemen was a premonition of Brexit’

After a turn on stage as George III, the co-founder of the League is returning to horror to recreate Dracula for TV. What he finds ‘frightening and debilitating’ now, though, is leaving the EU 

by Arifa Akbar

Mark Gatiss is recalling an early memory, rocking back and forth on the sofa as he talks. It is an “extraordinarily vivid” moment from when he lived opposite a psychiatric hospital in County Durham. The institution was central to his childhood, a “colony” in which his mother and father worked, where he went to swim, to trampoline, to see films. Except, on this occasion, he was left on one of the wards with his brother to wait for his parents. “I must have been around five. There was a boy rocking on a bed. As I remember it, he had an empty eye socket. He had his thumb in it and he was just rocking – like this.”

Gatiss takes his thumb to his eye and rocks some more. It is a baroque vision, creepy enough to make you squeal, and befitting for one of the creators of the stage show and TV series The League of Gentlemen. As Gatiss says: “You can’t get more northern gothic, can you?”

It is clear he enjoys playing up the northern gothic. His Twitter tagline reads: “Actor. Writer. Strangler.” In person, there is no hint of gloom. He is sweet and sunny, an optimist by his own admission. Still, an unprosperous northern childhood and those years of observing mental illness – and the world’s responses to it – continue to serve him at the age of 52. He is currently in Nottingham, in rehearsals to play the titular lead in Alan Bennett’s 1991 play, The Madness of George III, at the Nottingham Playhouse. The play – which was adapted for a 1994 film, The Madness of King George, starring Helen Mirren and Nigel Hawthorne – dramatises the monarch’s mental illness.

“It was very interesting [to grow up opposite the hospital]. I have a lot experience to draw on for this play. And it’s interesting to think about mental health in the 18th century … It’s a challenge to chart the king in his ‘normal’ state, as it were, and then what happens to him. You have to make sure there’s a journey into his condition, so you have somewhere to go.”

Brexit is like slitting your own throat and going to bed saying: ‘I’ll see how I am in the morning’

Since the TV version of the League – which followed the tormented outcasts and oddballs of the fictional town of Royston Vasey – landed in 1999 and earned Gatiss and his co-stars a legion of fans, he has helped to create some of the most popular shows on TV. These include the revived Doctor Who (as a writer and an actor) and Sherlock, a reimagining of Sherlock Holmes as a 21st-century detective, which he co-created with Steven Moffat and in which he stars as Holmes’s brother, Mycroft. In between, he has worked on films and written books and plays. His stint in Nottingham follows a nationwide tour ofthe League, an Oscar-tipped film (The Favourite) and The Dead Room, a yet-to-be-aired Christmas ghost story starring Simon Callow, which he wrote and directed. After The Madness of George III, he will team up with Moffat again for a BBC/Netflix adaptation of the vampire classic Dracula. “I do work hard and I think that’s a good thing,” he says. “Work hard, be kind, that’s my motto.”

Filming for Dracula will start next year, but Gatiss does not plan to act in it. He will not be drawn on who will be cast as the vampire, but says he and Moffat thought carefully before deciding to set the series in its original period, the 19th century: “We said when we started Sherlock that we briefly got custodianship of the keys to Baker Street and we felt: ‘It’s our go.’ So, we wanted to have ‘our go’ at Dracula and with that we wanted to do all the treats – a big, spooky castle and the rest of it.”

Sherlock was set in the modern day for the opposite reason: “We felt it had become so swamped with Victoriana that people had lost sight of what it was – which is essentially a flat-share story of two unlikely friends, one of whom solves crimes. That was the really exciting thing, to just go back to basics.” While the series has been a runaway success, there have been criticisms: one Guardian article lamented that his Sherlock was morphing into James Bond; it vexed Gatiss so much that he sent the Guardian a rejoinder in rhyme, outlining the differences between his hero and Ian Fleming’s.

There have been other charges of “unfaithfulness” in Gatiss’s adaptations, but he is adamant about his right to play with an original story. “I feel very strongly about not just drearily reproducing the book. You are duty-bound to think: ‘Here’s an idea, why don’t we flip this round,’ especially if people know it well. It doesn’t spoil the original. No one burns the manuscript … the Tardis would never have left the junkyard in the 1960s if it wasn’t about change.”

And what greater change than a female doctor? The new series is the first with which Gatiss has not been involved since Doctor Who relaunched in 2005. How does he feel about Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor? “First, it’s lovely that I’m enjoying watching it on a Sunday night and not knowing anything about it. I have even tried to avoid the trailer for the next time. And I have said for a very long time that there should be female Doctors. As soon as you watch it, you say: ‘Of course, why not?’ All you need, ever, is for the right person to be playing the part. Jodie is instantly likable, funny, delightfully odd.”

If that is the case, can we – should we – stop at Doctor Who or extend a gender-blind, colour-blind policy to all period dramas? It depends how literal we want to be, Gatiss says, but he balks at the prospect of a female Bond. “Doctor Who is an alien with two hearts who lives in a dimensionally transcendental phone box and can periodically change his or her appearance. James Bond is a man. There’s no way out of that. It becomes a very reductive argument. If you want to create a really kickass new heroine or hero, then do something else.”

If you were to create a female Bond, he adds, would you then follow Fleming’s blueprint of making her a sexist lothario? “What is it about James Bond you want to change? Is it just the sex or is it everything else? In which case, you’ve got a different character anyway.”

Gatiss was not long out of studying theatre arts at Bretton Hall College in West Yorkshire when he co-wrote the League with Jeremy Dyson, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, whom he met there. It has been a long, loyal partnership, even though they went their separate ways – and thrived – before returning after 13 years to take the show back on the road. “We never fell out, we just stopped doing it,” Gatiss says. “We had been doing it virtually day in, day out for 11 years. So, we decided to do other stuff. The extraordinary thing about the tour was that it felt like no time had passed, which is what great friendships are about.”

The League began as a stage sketch show in 1994, when standup was more dominant in comedy. Gatiss and the others were enlisted to fill a slot at a fringe festival. “We did it for five nights and it went down really well. I remember a friend of mine saying: ‘You should do something with this.’” They did – and won the Perrier award at the Edinburgh fringe in 1997. “We did what made us laugh. All the things we loved ranged from proper horror to the horror of embarrassment; Alan Bennett, Victoria Wood, Mike Leigh. It was very much about our northern upbringings, too – we were identifying our own experiences of the world of the north. It was real anger and despair and oddness.”

Bennett turned out to be a huge fan of the League. “It’s how I came to meet Alan and it was just astonishing to think that he liked The League of Gentlemen. We have always said what a major influence he was for us. I remember so well the first thing I saw of his was a play called Our Winnie [from 1982]. I only watched it because Winnie was my mother’s name. It’s a half-hour drama where Elizabeth Spriggs takes her mentally disabled daughter to the crematorium on a Sunday. I just remember looking at it and thinking: ‘How does he know all this?’ It was just like my life! The way people spoke, the colloquialisms and the amazing sense of oppressive Sunday tedium.”

Two decades on, Royston Vasey’s turned-in world seems to resemble Britain more than it did when it was conceived, I suggest – the local shop for local people, the suspicion of the outsider taken to its freakish, inbred, comic extremity. “Yes, I look at it and think: ‘It’s a bit like a premonition,’” he says. “The idea that: ‘There’s nothing for you here, go away.’ That’s why we pushed it a bit in the specials last year. We were never satirical, but we found it irresistible and deliberately got [the character] Edward to say: ‘It’s time we took back control.’”

The tour took Gatiss to 47 venues around Britain. Did he sense a change, post-Brexit? “Yes. Some places are rust-belt Britain. They’ve been abandoned. I thought constantly of Disraeli and ‘two nations’ [“Two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy”]. It made me think that some people must look at the events in Westminster as if they’re taking place on the moon. That’s why, when they were finally given the chance, they kicked back. And that’s why we’re in this fucking mess.”

It is not just the rising intolerance of the “immigrant” outsider that he fears, but also the erosion of other liberal, humanist values. As a gay man – he is married to the actor Ian Hallard – he has never felt personally threatened in London, where he lives, “but you go out of London and it’s very different. You go to certain parts of the country and you think: ‘I would modify my behaviour here.’”

The regions around his birthplace were the heartland for leave voters, but Gatiss is proud to have grown up in the north and in a working-class household: his father was the chief engineer at the psychiatric hospital and his mother was a carer and secretary. “I think my background did me an awful lot of good. There’s a very good line from Doctor Who: ‘Never lose sight of your horizons.’ There’s nothing wrong with coming from one place and moving to another place, but it’s good to know that and honour it. And also to acknowledge its flaws – it doesn’t have to be perfect.”

Brexit upsets him immensely. He speaks of it in irate exclamations and bloody analogies: “Brexit, to me, is like slitting your own throat and going to bed saying: ‘I’ll see how I am in the morning.’ I’m a sickeningly optimistic person and that’s what worries me about how depressed I am about it all. The temptation is to totally disengage because it’s so frightening and debilitating, but if you do that they’ve won.”

The Madness of George III is at Nottingham Playhouse until 24 November

[rbeatz]

A Preview of Governors Ball Music Festival 2017

Governors Ball in New York City is this weekend, and I’m going. I’m also brining my camera to take pictures and live tweet/Instagram the whole shebang. Follow rBeatz on social media for live updates

Governors Ball (aka Gov Ball) launched in 2011, featuring music acts playing rock, electronic, hip-hop, indie, Americana, pop, folk, and more. The entire production is run by the festival promotion company, Founders Entertainment, the same company that puts on The Meadows Music and Arts Festival.

I attended the very first Gov Ball in 2011 on Governors Island, headlined by Pretty Lights, Girl Talk, and Empire of the Sun. The event had the highest attendance of any event held on Governors Island in history. Due to the event’s strong performance, Founders Entertainment moved the festival location in 2012 to Randall’s Island, so more people could attend. They also extended the festival from one day to two days.

2012 was also a huge success, so in 2013, Founders Entertainment bumped the festival up to three days. Unfortunately, in 2013, there had been a big storm that first Friday, causing cancelations for much of the bigger headliners, such as Kings of Leon. Friday’s rain ran into Saturday, leading to a fairly muddy weekend.

I attended the event again in 2014. Outkast is one of my favorite groups and seeing Big Boy and André 3000 settle their qualms and get back to performing got me to purchase a ticket fairly quickly. I was immersed throughout their entire performance, singing along because that’s what you do as a die-hard fan.

2015 and 2016 also saw heavy rain. I purchased 2016 Sunday tickets to see Kanye in action, and I was disappointed by the cancellation. I did not attend the Kanye afterparty that got shutdown by the NYPD. No matter the rain situations of past, Governors Ball has still brought a successful track record. We look towards this year’s event to do the same.

According to Weather.com we have some fairly nice weather lined up. Partly sunny on Friday with a 20% chance of rain, partly sunny on Saturday with a 0% chance of rain, and 50% chance of rain on Sunday. Fingers crossed!

Below, I will take you through each act I expect to attend, a bit about the act, and the act’s newest (or best IMHO) project. If you’re wondering, “WHO IS THIS GUY WRITING THIS?!?” I’m someone deeply passionate about the arts, music in general, and my tastes lean more towards electronic, soul/funk, and hip-hop.

I have outlined the acts I plan to see in GREEN.  There are a total of 67 acts, and just like every 3-day festival, I might get tired and not get to everything. I will do my best and air live what I see on rBeatz social media with a longer recap-article next week.

    DAY 1 – Friday, June 2nd

  Jenaux

The 25-year old from New York City is a prolific live performer and remixer who busted into the dance music scene in 2014. He is known for his funky electro beats, which is personally my favorite genre (shhhh don’t tell the other genres). The song below is 7 months old, but it’s one of my favorite songs I’ve ever posted on rBeatz.

  Michael Blume

Michael Blume is an alternative R&B artist living in New York City. The Yale University graduate is a mix of various genres: jazz, hip-hop, soul, electronic, and R&B. He independently released his first EP, WHEN I GET IT RIGHT, about a year ago. His lyrics approach topics such as materialism, LBGTQ rights, and civil rights. If you’re in the mood for something different, something neo-soul/R&B, take a listen. Below is his most popular and my favorite song off the EP, Colors.

Blossoms

The 5 piece band from Stockport, England was formed in 2013 as a British indie-pop band. In late 2016, they released their debut album, Blossoms. The album reached the #1 spot on the UK Albums Chart in its first week. Below is their most popular music video from the album.

Francis and the Lights

A renaissance man in the music world. Francis Farewell Starlite aka Francis and the Lights is an unconventional yet effective vocalist and singer-songwriter with a bittersweet but energetic vibe. The guy has worked with Kanye and Chance The Rapper. What else is there left to say. Below is one of my favorite projects of his with Chance The Rapper. It’s a reprise of Dear Theodosia from the Broadway musical and trendsetter, Hamilton. Lin-Manuel Miranda released a compilation of notable rapers remixing songs from the enormously popular spectacle.

Kehlani

Oakland born R&B singer has been through a lot and tells it all. Raw, authentic, and real, Kehlani’s performance will make you feel. She has a unique mix of ethnicities: African American, Caucasian, Native American, Spanish, and Filipino Native American. A human ahead of her time with a rhythm to beat. She signed to Atlantic Records in 2015. Below is a glitchy/percussive remix from Kehlani’s debut album, SWEETSEXYSAVAGE, made by Norwegian artist Coucheron. It’s also her newest release

Charli XCX

The London-based edgy singer really came into the spotlight from her massively popular feature with Iggy Azalea, Fancy. If you haven’t heard of this one, you’re living under a rock. Since then, Charli XCX has delivered her own massively popular singles including, Boom Clap and Break The Rules. Two months ago, she released her mixtape, Number 1 Angel. Lipgloss feat cupcakKe is my favorite song of the mixtape. Super hyphy!

Tove Lo

Swedish pop-star who burst on the scene with Habits (Stay High) went to a high school whose motto was, “fuck reading, let’s play music.” She was the singer in a rock band in her earlier years, showing in the raw, gritty emotion of her voice. She switched to electronic elements, which veered her away from the rock scene. Below is a Taylor Gang (independent label founded by Wiz Khalifa) remix of her popular song WITH Wiz Khalifa, Influence.

Danny Brown

Detroit rap phenom, Danny Brown, busted through the scene with his 2011 mixtape, XXX. Danny is known for his individuality and being a unique figure in rap. Signed to A-Track’s Fools Gold Label, Danny Brown, released his third studio album, Old, which reached the #18 slot on Billboards Top 200.  Below is his most recent music video directed by simultaneously lovable and hatable, Jonah Hill.

ScHoolboy Q

The South Central LA Hip-Hop rapper and Black Hippy member, Quincy Matthew Hanley aka ScHoolboy Q,  is a prominent lyricist and Interscope artists. He is considered one of raps emerging voices. Born in Germany to military parents, ScHoolboy Q and his family quickly moved to Texas for 3 years than LA. His upbringing is described as a life­-shaping balance of sports, school, drugs and gangs. His first major-label studio album, Oxymoron, was released in early 2014 and debuted at number one spot on the US Billboard 200. Below is one of my favorite remixes EVER of ScHoolboy Q’s The Purge / Rapfix Cypher by 20syl.

Lorde

After releasing the enormously popular, cross-international, hit, Royals, back in the middle of 2013, Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O’Connor aka Lorde, became the youngest solo artist to reach a US number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100 since 1987. She was 16 years old. She was singed to Universal Music when she was 13 years old. The dream pop and indietronica singer/songwriter from New Zealand has earned two Grammys, a a Brit Award, ten New Zealand Music Awards, was named among Time’s most influential teenagers in the world in 2013, and in 2014, was part of Forbes’s “30 Under 30” list. Two weeks ago, she released the Chromeo remix to her popular song, Green Light.

Flume

The Australian dance-music maker and production luminary, Flume, burst into the scene in 2012 with his single, Sleepless and remix to Hermitude’s Hyperparadise. Most fans of electronic music should know both of these. Since then, his career has skyrocketed to be one of the top names in electronic music. From bedroom producer to international sensation is most producers dreams and Flume’s reality.  The producer is know for his control over the atmosphere in his sound and dynamic arrangements. Take a listen to his newest single, Hyperreal , featuring Kučka.

Chance The Rapper

Probably my favorite rapper right now. The only reason I wont leave Flume early for Chance is because I want to see what Flume has in store for his finale. Chance from Chicago is everywhere right now, and it’s well deserved. His third mixtape, Coloring Book, became the first streaming-only album to win a Grammy Award. It won Best Rap Album. Chancelor Johnathan Bennett aka Chance The Rapper is a shining light in the music industry because he proved that independent artists can make it too.  Francis The Light and Chance The Rapper recently released this music video. It’s beautiful.

DAY 2 – Saturday, June 3rd

  VANT

The four-piece band from London, England aren’t only here to make music, but also to make a statement. Make no mistake, Vant vent. They vent about Syria, environmentalism, sexual assault, inequality, racism, religion, social media isolation, and the all-out self-destruction of mankind through a mask of punk rock. Take a look at their music video, Peace & Love, below. It’s a video that brings to light the violence that took place in Kiev and Amman in October of 2016.

Welles

Welles is a dichotomy of peace and anger who has been compared as a mix between Kurt Cobain and John Lennon. His voice is reminiscent of the 60s and 70s rock n roll era with a similar tinge of psychedelic funk. The native from Ozark, Arkansas released his album, Codeine, last week. Life Like Mine below is my favorite song from the album.

Dua Lipa

Dua Lipa is a British singer/songwriter who began her music career at the age of 14, releasing popular covers from artists such as Christina Aguilera and Nelly Furtado on Youtube. She signed with Warner Bros. Records in 2015 when she was only 19, and released her first single at the age of 20. In 2016, The Fader, released a documentary entitled, Sea In Blue, about the life of Dua Lipa. She is set to release her debut studio album, Dua Lipa, TOMORROW!!! Stay Tuned. Below is her new music video with Miguel for her single, Lost In Your Light.

The Range

The Brooklyn producer fell in love with making music on the computer after falling in love with Baltimore club. Since then, he’s brought in influences from early ‘90s jungle, early ‘00s grime and mid ‘00s electronica to create his very own unique vibe. James Hinton aka The Range was raised by his mother, a music teacher, on a farm in Pennsylvania. He graduated from Brown University with a degree in physics. After graduating, he worked in a lab and was a music teacher at Brown. In 2013, he began focusing on his music career full-time.  His second album, Potential, released in March of 2016 was a compilation of over 200 hours scanning obscure YouTube clips for audio samples.

Stormzy

Stormzy, AKA The Problem, AKA Big Mike, AKA Stiff Chocolate was suppose to go to Oxford University, graduating at the top of his class, but then a couple of his youtube videos started gaining popularity and things changed. His most popular song to date is his freestyle, Shutup, which was released as a single and hit number eight on the UK Singles Chart. Stormzy is a self-described “a child of grime” influenced by the likes of Wiley and Skepta. 3 months ago, the Brit released his debut studio album, Gang Signs & Prayer. Below is a song from that album, Cigarettes & Cush, featuring Friday performer, Kehlani. It’s super sexy!

Rae Sremmurd

I’ve never witnessed and act with more energy than the Tupelo, Mississippi duo, Rae Sremmurd, formed by two brothers, Swae Lee and Slim Jxmmi.  These two have been on FIRE, working and touring, releasing two studio albums. Their debut album, SremmLife, sold over 1 million copies in the United States. These guys are viral makers, making platinum-selling single after platinum-selling single. No Type, No Flex Zone, and Throw Sum Mo were three platinum sellers from their first album. Along with Black Beatles, inspiring the viral sensation ‘Mannequin Challenge,’ the duo has amassed close to 1.5 BILLION plays on youtube with these four hits. Below is the duo’s newly promoted track from their record label, SremmLife Crew Records. 

A$AP Ferg

The rapper from Harlem, New York City is the second most popular act in the infamous hip-hop collective, A$AP Mob. Darold D. Brown Ferguson, Jr. aka A$AP Ferg really hit the spotlight after huge success from his single, Shabba, of his 2013 Trap Lord album. Complex named the song the 3rd best released song in 2013. The song was an ode to one of the best dancehall artists of his generation, Shabba Ranks, one of the first Jamaican DJs who brought dancehall into the limelight. Below is his new music video with Remy Ma. I’m sure he’ll play it in the mecca of East Coast pride. Maybe Remy might even show up and represent NYC. It was her birthday was 2 days ago, so shoutout!

RÜFÜS DU SOL

The Australian alternative dance trio is a constant chart topper in the Land Down Under. Both of their albums have reached the #1 spot in Australia. Their sound can be described as dreamy vocals, moody synths and driving kicks. They’ve accompanied a beautiful quote about electronic music to the Governors Ball website that I’d like to share.

“For us personally, we were each drawn to electronic music because of the euphoric nature of it. At its core, it brings people together to dance of course. I’m sure I’m not the first person to say this, but our favourite artists are our favourite because we’ve shared moments listening to them with friends or family that you can’t recreate. Moments that you remember forever.”

Below is their most recent music video to Innerbloom, off their chart topping album, Bloom.

  Marshmello

I dono? Marshmello is a Marshmallow that produces bangers. Here’s it’s new song.

BANKS

Jillian Rose Banks aka Banks broke out in 2014 after her release of the single, Goddess. She became the talk of the town, her voice being compared to the likes of Fiona Apple, Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill. There was a wave of alt-pop/R&B and she was at the front of it. Jillian’s creation process is an exploration of raw expression and solace, something that you can really hear from her breath. Take a listen to her new single, Crowded Places, put down the technology for a second, and take it in. Beautiful.

Childish Gambino

Donald McKinley Glover aka Childish Gambino is a multifaceted hero in the entertainment industry. He is an extremely successful actor, writer, producer, comedian, rapper, singer, and songwriter. When I say extremely successful, I’m talking writer on 30 Rock at the age of 23; main actor in the NBC sitcom, Community; producer, director, and star of the FX series, Atlanta; and two time Grammy-Nominated musician.  Success doesn’t even begin to describe his illustrious career, and he’s only 33 years old. Legend. The song below is a song that I haven’t been able to get out of my head since it came out. It’s from Donald’s third studio album, “Awaken, My Love!” The song speaks for itself.

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