Words by: Michelle Swami

Summer has officially arrived and what goes hand in hand with summer? Festivals. That’s right, festival season is upon us. The long days of hanging out with your pals, day drinking, sleeping in a hot tent or if you’re lucky waiting in a 30+ minute wait for the shuttle, expensive food and alcohol, porta-potties, but most importantly, the music.

We in BC are lucky to have many music festivals in our beautiful province. One festival that is old, yet new to the game is the third instalment of the Pemberton Music Festival. Nestled right in front of the beautfiul Mount Currie in Pemberton, BC, the fest originally started in 2008 by promoter heavy weights, Live Nation. The first edition of the festival included a star studded line-up which included Jay-Z, Coldplay and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. However, a few hiccups down the road, ultimately resulted in the cancellation of the planned 2009 and 2010 events. Fast-forward to 2014, where new event coordinators, Huka Entertainment took over the festival. Despite some bumps you would see at any music festival, that year went relatively smooth and was highly successful. With acts such as Outkast, Kendrick Lamar, Tyler the Creator and Frank Ocean, you would think this year would be hard to top, but you would be surprised.

For this year’s festival they have made some noteworthy improvements from some issues last year:

Campgrounds for 2015 will be expanded to include property on both sides of the Sea to Sky Highway, which means that campers parked on the south side of the road opposite the festival grounds will have the option to camp there, and will no longer be required to carry their gear across the bridge spanning the road to the festival site. Additionally, paths from other parking lots leading to festival campgrounds will be upgraded to include hard-packed surfaces with minimal obstructions.

Other improvements will include food service and offerings for VIP patrons as well as placement of campground amenities, including showers and water filling stations.

[Get tickets and more info here]

This year’s line up not only focuses on a lot of new faces in Hip-Hop but a lot of old faces too. Wondering which Hip-Hop acts you should see? Well, us at HHV are here to help with our…

Top Five “can’t miss” Sets:

1. Kendrick Lamar:

Fresh off the heels of a new album and a festival headlining set at Sasquatch, K-Dot is back in the Pacific Northwest, headlining this time in Canada, at this very music festival. Kendrick is no stranger to this festival, as he played last year during a afternoon set. Going from afternoon set to festival headliner in a year? Kudos. Expect to see a lot of crowd participation and fan favourites during this set.

2. Missy Elliot:

Missy is one named you don’t see in a lot of festival line-ups these days. Having made a cameo during this years Superbowl, people were excited to see that 2015 was going to be the year of her comeback. Ten years since her last album and a reality show later, Pemberton will be a great way to see how she has progressed since then. Only playing Pemberton and Bestival this summer, it will be a great honour to see Missy Elliot grace that stage. Expect a lot of people passing that dutch and getting their freak on.

3. Run the Jewels:

Like Kendrick, RTJ is back in the Pacific Northwest festival scene, playing Pemberton fresh off the heels of an energetic Sasquatch set. Their first two albums were high acclaimed (and even covered by cats), as are their infectious live shows and festival sets, even being called “the best set of Coachella” by various media outlets. Do not miss in fear of missing the potential best set of Pemberton.

4. De La Soul:

Festival veterans since the 90’s, De La Soul are here to bring their summer time vibes to Pemberton. Fun lyrics and great beats would make for great music to dance to under the hot sun. Not only will they play cuts from their classic album (a must have for any Hip-Hop fan) ‘3 Feet High and Rising’, expect to hear a sneak preview of their new album, which was funded by Kickstarter, that reached their goal of $110,000 in under ten hours. My how times have changed…

5. Spooky Black (Corbin):

Not much is known about the mysterious 16-year old Corbin, also known as Spooky Black. Hailing from St. Paul, Minnesota, Corbin found great success on the internet in late 2014/early 2015 with the Tumblr/Sad Boy set. Not so great fanbase aside, Corbin has had features in Fact Mag, Vice and Paper due to his great talent and sultry R&B vocals. I-D Mag has called him the “future of music”, I guess we will see at Pemberton, with this festival being his only PNW date this summer.

Those were the top 5, HHV must-see acts of Pemberton. Other artists include: J. Cole, Kid Cudi, Earl Sweatshirt, Yung Lean, Galatic feat. Macy Gray, Logic, Flatbush Zombies, A$AP Ferg and Sango.

We hope to see you under the stars, in front of the mountain at this years Pemberton Music Festival!

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2015 Pemberton Music Festival [HHV PREVIEW]