This is going to be a tough one or at least it's tough right now.

We're going to talk about Asterole a little bit today.

We're going to talk a little bit bigger picture about how hip-hop crowds have changed over

the years, but we wouldn't be having this conversation had not the tragedy at Asterole

Festival happen a couple days ago.

J.P. people lost their lives.

Donish Big 27, Rudy Pena 23, Madison Dubisky 23, Franco Patino 21, Axel Acosta 21, Jacob

Jernick 20, Brianna Rodriguez 16, John Hilgert 14.

If that doesn't send a shiver down your spine, if that doesn't make you just a little

bit sick, I don't know.

I haven't been to Asterole, been to similar festivals, obviously been a wrong loud, been

to plenty of concerts where crowds got out of hand.

As I get older, I try to stay on the fringes of those out of hand crowds.

There is an fundamental unpredictability to what happens when you gather that amount

of people in a compressed space, all facing the same direction, all sharing a communal

experience, but maybe not looking out for each other.

I watched a lot of videos of what happened in Asterole World, and as someone that's been

in those spaces, I understand how they can feel, liberating, and freeing, and full of

hope, frankly, but watching those videos, I would struck my house similar they were to

videos I've seen of crowds at various shows for the last few years, obviously not counting

COVID, and how similar they were to crowds that shows I've been to, and made me really

think hard about how fortunate we are that we haven't had an event like this happen previously,

...