Inaugural Day N Night Festival Shook Oak Canyon Park

Joseph Baura

The minds behind the Observatory OC and Beach Goth put together a new hip hop festival, Day N Night, that beckoned many of mainstream hip hop’s upcoming and established artists. Held at Orange County’s Oak Canyon Park, its sprawling grounds served as a perfect setting for 3 stages with enough shade and grass to keep attendees cool all weekend.

For Day N Night’s launch, it was essential for organizers to bring out huge acts and  opening day’s hefty lineup featured artists like Cozz and Bas of Dreamville records performing sets into the late afternoon. On the main stage, a battle of the dreadlocks was taking place with Lil Yachty and Lil Uzi Vert performing back to back sets. As two of driving forces behind hip hop’s current generation of hype rappers, the crowd responded with unbelievable hype when songs like “You Was Right” and “Minnesota” were performed by the respective rappers. Lil Uzi Vert took the cake however when he decided to run through the middle aisle of the crowd, jump the barricade and run out into the crowd of people before sprinting back to the stage.

With a surprise set, Rae Sremmurd came out to perform songs off of their latest album, “Sremmlife 2.” Houston’s own Post Malone took to the stage with his laid back, southern drawl, performing hits like “Too Young” and his huge radio single, “White Iverson.” As Metro Boomin was throwing his own party on the Weed Maps stage, fans were getting a little taste of Compton’s, that is, Bompton’s own YG hitting the main stage. Lastly A$AP Rocky closed out Saturday night, kicking off with his drug infused anthem, “LSD.” As one that rarely travels by himself, Rocky also brought out some of the A$AP Mob to perform “Hella Hoes” and “Yamborghini High.”

As heavily stacked as Saturday was, Sunday, despite several confusing set time changes, reached another level. With so much hip hop at the event, it was refreshing for Aussie DJ Flume to get a set of his own. With the Soulection DJs taking on the Weed Maps stage, one of their familiar collaborators, Goldlink, took to the main stage to perform a handful of songs from “And After That, We Didn’t Talk” and “The God Complex” and, in a surprise move, Goldlink brought out TDE’s, Isaiah Rashad.

Vic Mensa, after making a statement about the recent police shootings of black men took the stage by storm with “16 Shots” and gave one of the festivals most memorable performances. Bryson Tiller performed the entirety of his “Trapsoul” album, while also giving some time for a couple songs by Travis Scott. After a slight delay, Young Thug closed out Day N Night, keeping the crowd hyped with songs off of “Slime Season 3,” “I’m Up” and many of his early mixtapes.

Day N Night offered a great taste of what may be coming in the future of California hip hop festivals. While there were several hiccups, schedule changes, stage moves  and a difficult parking situation, there is no doubt that the minds behind the festival will be addressing these issues in the future. As far as the music itself goes, it was an energetic, non-stop two days of water-throwing, crowd-surfing fun.

Day N Night Festival took over Oak Canyon Park on Aug. 13 and 14.