10 Unclassified Acts to See at Panorama Music Festival 2017

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All you need to do to get hyped for Norwegian producer Cashmere Cat’s Sunday show is listen to his mix for OVO Sound Radio. It reflects his nearly indescribable hybrid of pop music sensibility with his electronic foundation. If there’s any producer symbolic of today’s light-headed and experimental sounds, it’s Cashmere Cat. Unafraid to make pop music sound weird, watching Cashmere Cat’s set will be watching a DJ on the cusp of a Diplo-esque ascent. 

Jamila Woods was a highlight at Pitchfork, and there’s no reason to think her set at Panorama will be any less strong. She’s worked with fellow Chicagoans like Chance the Rapper and Saba, and her music is protest music, but it’s also about love, about optimism, about insecurity. Her voice is sweet and holy, and you’ll come away from her set feeling the power of her hip-hop influenced soul sound. 

Vince Staples is, among many other things, fearlessly candid and deeply charismatic. Off the heels of his latest album Big Fish Theory (and his first Complex cover), Staples is bringing his Life Aquatic tour to Panorama’s Saturday evening slot, and it’ll be your chance to hear an album whose vision expands beyond rap to tap into the sounds of London club music and American house. Staples has been a festival mainstay in recent years for a reason, and you’ll want to hear a provocative master storyteller talk about the paradoxes and complications of paradise. 

Honey Dijon neé Redmond feels like a citizen of the world in every sense — spinning at Panorama Bar in Berlin, DJing for Balenciaga — and she’s chic as hell while tearing down gender and sexuality barriers. She’s the utmost unclassifiable, creating her own world through house and jacking tracks that are a joy to take shelter in. She’s a veteran of the scene, and during her Sunday evening set, you’ll be catching a readymade star’s meteoric rise. You’ll be dancing the whole time.

Mitski is a must-see at any festival. Her music is anthemic, and she is a force, and her sets reflect that. The audience is typically quiet, absorbing it all—and even the guitar-heavy cover she occasionally plays of Calvin Harris’ “How Deep Is Your Love?” will give you goosebumps. Mitski tells stories—and tells them with a fierce, plaintive wail—that so specifically pinpoint being young, you can’t help but be completely captivated.

Few lyrics capture summer romance ennui like “I used to have a name that look like butterflies and Hennessey/I'd trade it up for happiness but joyful don't remember me” or “Mississippi over ice/Janet Jackson and flashing lights.” Noname has been rapping and performing slam poetry in Chicago since 2010, but it was her cameo on Chance the Rapper’s Acid Rap that attracted attention on a larger scale. (She and Chance make especially beautiful music together.) Make it a Saturday afternoon double feature with Noname, followed by Mitski, for a one-two punch of lyrics that will make you feel a type of way. 

A Tribe Called Quest—along with Nine Inch Nails—will close out Sunday night, and both of these legends are coming to the stage with new material. Tribe’s We Got it From Here...Thank You for You Service is the first album from the group since 1998, and, in a year that has felt nothing short of insane, the words of the immortal crew feel especially necessary.

Panorama will be Tyler, the Creator’s first show since the release of his album Flower Boy—his best work to date. He’s grown up a little, but he’s still processing the mess of youth, of love, of figuring it out, and it seems like maybe he’s been liberated a little in the process. Mixing keys and trap beats, angry verses with confessions, he exists in a world inhabited by few, and truly understood by even less. His venom is more refined, and it will be a pleasure to see how that plays out live. 

Solange is a puzzle that’s more fun to not figure out. Few pop musicians mix joy and intensity, confessions and healing, cool breezes and resolute groundedness quite like Solange. Her set should be nothing but a force. The beats will feel like palm trees and the sun setting on highways, and the lyrics will feel like a story you don’t want to stop listening to. 

Brad Pitt—again, for emphasis—Brad Pitt showed up on stage during Frank Ocean’s FYF performance in L.A. last Saturday. This is reason alone to know that Ocean’s set will be pure magic. Exactly what kind of magic it will be is to be determined, as his music toes the line between hip-hop, R&B, and crooned indie in a way that is both hard to describe and yet familiar. After a long hiatus and pulling out of multiple festivals this year, emotions are running high during his sets. There’s a very good chance you’ll cry, and that will be a good and cleansing thing—we’ve waited a long time for this.