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Milwaukee-born rapper DC The Don’s set on Friday at the USCelluar Connection Stage at Summerfest was nothing short of chaotic, disorganized, and reckless.
And you know what? It was damn fun, too.
That was the mission for DC The Don, who grew up in Milwaukee, before basketball dreams took him out to California to play with the likes of Lonzo and LaMelo Ball, until his music on SoundCloud began to take off. Fast forward to Friday night, and he was making a return trip to Summerfest, as part of a run that included both buzzing Milwaukee upstarts Dres, as well as the Run Along Forever crew, and was capped off by New York rapper Lil Tecca. In the interim, DC was going to rage with his people as much as possible.
To preface, if you were coming to the USCellular Connection Stage on Friday expecting lyrical miracle raps with intricate wordplay or vocal patterns, you’d be sorely mistaken. However, if you wanted to tap into the pure energy of a young artist that was just happy to be at Summerfest with an overly eager crowd, you got more than what you bargained for from DC, who covered as much ground as he could while his tracks played over the PA. Occasionally, the crowd got some rapping as well, and he proved he was more than capable of it when he needed to. But for the majority of the 40-minute set, it was about perpetual motion from everyone involved.
It didn’t take long for things to get active, with DC running on stage after his opening beat drop, and quickly jumping down to the front row barricade of the Connection Stage. From there, he’d climb over the rail to the barricades by the bleachers, and then down the center aisle of the stage’s footprint. It was a pattern he’d repeat several times over, hyping up a young crowd every time he’d walk past or stand on the railings. It didn’t take much to stoke the fire, but when tracks like “Nice To Meet Me” and “Fully Loaded” dropped, things went into overdrive.
A good portion of the set was spent by DC and his DJ interacting with the crowd, with multiple requests to open up a mosh pit at the front of the stage. DC insisted that it opened up as wide as possible, and then on cue, it would collapse in with the beat drop. The pattern would repeat on the next song; open things up, drop the beat, and watch everyone go crazy. Simple, yet effective, and in the course of just over a half hour, it would happen the better part of ten times during the set. When he wasn’t starting the pits, he was in them, or literally being carried by fans from one barricade to the next, and ultimately into the bleachers at one point.
To say the scene was giving Summerfest security a hard time would be an understatement, but it never was going to boil over into total anarchy. Everyone that was in the crowd for one of Milwaukee’s own was there to give every ounce of energy that they could into partying with DC The Don, and he gave it right back to them. At one point, management asked DC to stop jumping into the crowd, as it was getting hard to keep him safe. He let the crowd know, and they chanted their displeasure. He would still get down to the barricades, as close as he could go to jumping back into the crowd without actually crossing the line. DC The Don was a man of the people, and his city was literally going to hold him up.
The only real misstep was the close of the show, when he told the crowd that he had one last song to do, and he would take a request for it. With a lengthy catalog of music that includes an album this year and an EP that just dropped at the end of June, there were understandably lots of different requests. After about five minutes of trying to hear the crowd, he opted to “speed run” through four different tracks, which understandably sent his DJ scrambling as well. He would get them all off in time, however, with plenty of moshing at each drop to close out the set.
DC The Don didn’t control the crowd the way that a traditional emcee might. He didn’t have to rap a thousand words a minute or give you double entendres and punchlines that made you love his rapping. He was there to party and entertain, and had an energy about him that was inescapable. For 40 minutes, ignorance was bliss, and one of Milwaukee’s most successful hip hop exports had a homecoming that people won’t forget anytime soon.
