Once we were able to shake ourselves from the mind control that Kraftwerk was exercising over us, we raced over to see M.I.A. perform in the Sahara tent. M.I.A. is an unimposing young woman from Sri Lanka, by way of London, but on the mic she puts out loud, thumping rap anthems with heavy African and Brazilian influence, and a lot of original Sri Lankan flavor. She brought Afrikan Boy out to help rile up the huge crowd with “Hussel” Saturday night, above—and when I say crowd I mean it. I’ve never seen the Sahara tent so packed—the audience was literally climbing three levels up the rafters! It was sort of unreal to step back, take a look around, and see yourself as a part of this huge unruly mass of people all dancing to the primal bass beats (Nicole appropriately called the experience “getting bassfucked”!) and sounds of gunfire as they cranked it up again with “Paper Planes.” The difference is, Nicole says, at the favela parties in Rio de Janeiro, the gunfire would be real.

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