Ain't no people like Sandpeople!

Sharing their name with both Star Wars' Tusken Raiders and a threatened tribe in the Namibian bush, Sandpeople are a giant Portland hip-hop crew -- with 8 people, one of whom is basketball-player tall, they more than fill the stage with a riot of long waving limbs and bountiful bounding backup shouters. Their tracks combine bone-crunchingly loud bass and bass drum (I think at this point Yellow Swans-ish might be the appropriate honorific) with delicate flute/guitar/other-high-pitched-musical-sound samples. Their lyrics range from helpful advice ("Don't drive with drugs up in the front, put 'em in the trunk") to relevant aphorisms ("Fuck the deadbeat dads of modern music!").

Like other PDX Pop hip-hop acts before them, they worked incredibly hard to get our relatively dance-resistant crowd to move their feet and wave their hands. And it worked! And now we've only got Blitzen Trapper left before we bring this year's fest to a close! Holy cow!