10 acts we want to see at Rhythm & Vines 2019
It’s almost lineup season baby!! And boy do we have a wishlist and a half.
August is maybe our favourite month of the year aside from December and January. We get lineup announcements for all the major summer festivals and the hype really starts to kick in for New Years. This year we’ll be bringing in a new decade and we’re willing to bet that R&V will be helping us celebrate like nobody else can. Last year we correctly predicted that Juice WRLD, Baynk, SWIDT, JessB and Jon Lemmon would be tearing up Waiohika Estate — keep reading to see who we’d love to catch this year!
Honourable Mentions
There are a couple of Kiwi stalwarts who we’d love to see. Lee Mvtthews, JessB and Sachi have all killed R&V before but they’re so good we just want more. Wilkinson and RL Grime have already been announced for Rhythm & Alps. That’s enough for us to say they’re almost dead certain to make R&V appearances. We included Dharmarat in our list last year and after catching him live again recently, we’re even further convinced that he deserves a spot on that lineup.
Church & AP
They’re the hottest commodity in the Aotearoa Hip-Hop scene right now. If Church & AP aren’t fielding offers from every festival in NZ and Australia then we need new promoters. We figure that if the boys are keen, this one’s probably the safest bet you could make — to not have them there would be a travesty.
BENEE
Aotearoa’s new pop queen? The case for BENEE is essentially the same as Church & AP. She’s exploded over the past 8 months with her quirky alt-pop tunes. BENEE is exactly the kind of artist who would be a perfect afternoon start to Rhythm & Vines on the 29th.
DJ Snake
Okay, okay… hear us out. None of us are the biggest fans of his music or his melody ‘borrowing’ tendencies, but you can’t deny how iconic tracks like Magenta Riddim are. The breathers go hard at R&V but DJ Snake’s mosh pits are f**king war zones — how mental would this be at Rhythm?
Young Thug
If you’re the kind of person (read: nerd) who analyses festival lineups year on year as we do, you’ll notice patterns and formulas. There are certain slots that need to be filled. Young Thug fills the slot that acts like Goldlink or Juice WRLD have in the past. I’d imagine he may have some visa issues, but having Thugger destroy the Vines Stage would be memorable.
Urbandawn
The hottest Drum & Bass bootleg of 2018 finally became an official track this May and we’ll be damned if we don’t wanna see Urbandawn tear up Gisborne with it. It was absolutely thrashed on George FM over summer, but it still goes hard so let’s hear it one more time.
Rei
He’s just dropped his latest album The Bridge, and Rei shows no signs of slowing down as one of Aotearoa’s next big acts. His infectious track Good Mood exploded after being picked up by Mai FM and the man is no stranger to the odd House or Trap remix of his own tracks. He’d bring rangatira to Waiohika Estate whether it’s a mellow afternoon set or a high energy evening one — the man has a deep repertoire.
Alison Wonderland
She’s Australia’s queen of electronic music and she puts on one hell of a show with a heavy melodic style of mixing that always goes off. We love to see representation in a festival lineup, and Alison Wonderland is a great artist to book without sacrificing name value or quality.
Zack Fox
Every good festival needs a meme act. In 2017 it was Big Shaq, in 2019 please god let it be Zack Fox. Jesus Is The One might be the greatest song ever made and Fox has the hard-hitting Square Up to back that up too. Rhythm and Vines if you’re reading this — we’re begging you.
Flume
I was going to start this blurb by saying it would be awesome to see Flume perform his new mixtape at Waiohika Estate, but then I realised he hasn’t returned since 2012. It’s time to bring the experimental king back to headline the Vines Stage with his eclectic hits.
Dane Rumble
The greatest artist in New Zealand’s rich musical history, Dane Rumble has seen an explosion in listeners recently thanks to ‘shitposting’ pages. It would only be right for him to return for one last set, performing to a packed Vines Stage like he deserves to, hearing Cruel (Rap Version) sung back at him word for word — if you don’t know the lyrics you’re not a Kiwi.
