Festival Recap: Made in America Day 2
Words and Photos by Lantz Martin
After a successful and extremely fun day 1 of Made In America it was time to see if day 2 could live up to its predecessor and spoiler alert: it might have been even better. I started the second day of Made In America with Victoria Monét who put on a spectacular performance. Seeing someone who is able to not only sound great but also do it while dancing has always been really impressive to me especially when it’s choreographed with other dancers as well. Afterwards I went and saw Fuerza Regida. At the time I was not that familiar with Fuerza Regida. I knew that they were a group of five individuals but I was very surprised when they brought a whole mariachi band on stage with them as support. They probably had the most live instrumentation during the weekend and the front man Jesús Ortiz Paz got the crowd hyped as soon as he came out.
Going back to talented individuals who can sing and dance Tate McRae lit up the crowd with her show. I do not think there was a single part of the stage that she did not touch. She came out performing “stupid” and from there everyone started grooving along with her. I then left the main stage to go see Rels B at the Liberty Stage. I am pretty sure that I have never seen an artist smile more than Rels B. You could just tell that he loves to be on stage performing and the crowd definitely loved seeing him as well. His production in particular was really engaging because the LED screen behind him was basically showing different shots/angles of him performing so even if someone was in the far back of the crowd, they would be able to still get a good view of him.
Continuing on with the Spanish theme of the day I left Liberty and went back to the Rocky Stage to see Ryan Castro. Without a doubt, Ryan had the most colorful outfit of the entire weekend and gave Philly a taste of Colombia’s reggaetón music. Changing the pace of things, I had to go see Snoh Aalegra. I was originally going to see her for the first time back home in Miami but unfortunately, she got sick and had to cancel so I was not going to miss my opportunity this time. I’m so glad that I did because she absolutely killed it and sounds incredible live. After Snoh it was time to turn up with Don Toliver. Quick little anecdote but while us photographers were waiting to go to the main stage pit, we saw Don Toliver and Kali Uchis pull up backstage on a golf cart which was pretty cool. Don came out performing the recently released DJ Khaled track “LET’S PRAY” with the signature mushrooms from his tour on stage as part of the background.
Finally, Made In America was closing out the weekend with Burna Boy and Bad Bunny. Burna Boy came out to “Science” with several band members and backup singers assisting him. He ended up telling the crowd that he almost missed the show because he messed up his leg but he loves Philly so much that he decided that he was going to muscle through the pain. I had not seen Burna Boy perform before so I am not sure if he is one of those performers that runs around the stage but even with his injury he still managed to move around, dance, and put on an amazing show. It was then time for the last act of the weekend Bad Bunny who put on one of the best performances that I have seen from him and I have seen him 4 times now. Being from Miami I was not really sure what to expect in terms of how the crowd would react to Bad Bunny since Philly does not have nearly the same number of Latinos as the 305 does but I was honestly blown away because everyone absolutely loved him. It was truly amazing to see how people from all different races/backgrounds were able to come together and enjoy the show which at the end of the weekend I feel like is part of the culture behind Made In America. After all, to have 25,800 festival attendees pledge social actions is no easy task but the Cause Village made it happen so clearly Made In America has created something truly special with their festival. Hopefully we will be back next year to cover Made In America because it was honestly a fantastic weekend and for anyone that has not been I highly recommend it.