The concept behind Red Bull Music Academy’s On The Floor event is simple—bring a few notable participants from the academy together and let them each mix/perform whatever they chose for ninety minutes straight. Depending on the combination of talent, the formula could amount to a straight up stellar show. And this was the case overall last Friday at Chicago’s Double Door as influential L.A. producer Flying Lotus was joined by Londoner Kode 9, and Toronto’s Mymanhenri for a night of mad, mind-bending beats.

Unseasonably warm temperatures on this April night helped bring a good energy to the Double Door as Chicagoans vibed out to the performers’ bass-minded mixes. After an opening set from yroc, Mymanhenri brought the heavy hip-hop influence, patching together a host of Dilla classics along with favorites from Doom and Busta Rhymes. It was a slightly left field look at hip-hop from a seasoned listener’s perspective. Next up was Kode 9. On an extremely darkened stage, he trekked through broken beats of all kinds including dubstep, dropping The Bug’s “Poison Dart,” but also catching the crowd by surprise with popular gems like Bone Thugs & Harmony’s “Thuggish Ruggish Bone.”

Fittingly FlyLo closed out the show as the Double Door became packed to the brim. As usual, the beatsmith primarily performed his material. But let’s face it—that’s exactly what the people paid to see.

Recreating his remixes (e.g. Lil’ Wayne’s “I Feel Like Dying”) and original tracks, FlyLo turned the Double Door into a sea of bodies in motion. With intense imagery being rapidly projected behind him and a wild assortment of lights flashing, he brought the crowd into a frenzy with his tripped out funk (“Golden Diva”) and most booming beats (“GNG BNG”). There’s no question he could fill much larger rooms at this point, but on this night, the Double Door proved to be the perfect setting for this showcase of imaginative beat work from FlyLo and fellow Red Bull Music Academy participants.

Words and Photos by Max Herman