Events

1st Annual Above Ground Holiday Party Takes Over No Name On FairFax

December 5, 2017

Monday, December 4

First of all, I’d love to start this off by saying it’s 2:30am and I just got barely got home. At 7pm, I literally napped in my car for 30 min. And here I am. Side note, I lost my apt keys for 30 minutes in my car. It ended up being in my backpack. Why.

I’ma just walk you through my entire day, because you care. The morning drive to work started with playing “December 4th” by JAY-Z. Happy birthday to one of the greatest rappers to ever do it.

Today was dope for two reasons. 1) We got catered Taco Bell catered for lunch to celebrate babygirl Diana and Drama’s birthday. Pretty sure the food choice was by Drama (the founder of Young & Reckless). It was epic until everyone complained how shitty they felt lmao.

2) I got to speak and interview Philthy Rich from the Yay Areaaaaaaa. I can’t contain myself when it comes to artists from the Bay. Automatic love. Automatic cosign. Automatic fan. There are some crazy slept on artists from the Bay right now, and Philthy is one of them. He just dropped an album called Sem God, with features from Gucci to Dolph to Durk. He’s also a god in the Bay. It’s brazy how different the Bay is compared to LA. Dif vibes.

And then a dentist appointment from hell. I swear, I have the worst luck. Have to get a root canal tomorrow :(.

Tonight was Above Ground‘s holiday party, all thanks to the man himself, David Ali. He’s so much more than just Kehlani’s manager — so much more. He’s the founder of Above Ground, his artist management company. The backstory: he started #AboveGround back in San Fran just throwing lit parties. I literally was with someone earlier who said they knew David since they were 18 years old. He was throwing club events and parties for 21+ when he wasn’t even of age. That’s so damn motivating.

David is an extremely smart businessman, evident through his success with Baelani alone. Now, he’s building an empire. This empire includes a roster of Kehlani, her DJ Noodz,  Marteen, P-Lo, and a few more. All I can say is, Yay Area in the building. There’s nobody I fuck with more than Bay people. We dress a little different, talk a little different, act a little different… we keep it mad real. All the success David had throwing parties in SF, is now being transferred into the music industry. And it’s low key perfect. He was made for this.

I got to No Name on Fairfax around 7pm and straight up napped in the whip. Low key didn’t want to drive all the way back home to downtown and back out. That shit will kill you. First of all, I fucking love this venue. I’ve seen main intimate showcases here, including Daniel Caesar before Freudian dropped. I was literally 2 feet away from him, in his face when he was performing lmao. It was beautiful. Tonight, the mood was set for the function. The open bar was sponsored by Red Bull, which turned Monday into a celebration of life. Huge thanks to Henry and Renee for being so amazingly helpful!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BcT3VUjFzCm/?taken-by=shirju

Part of my job was to tell people the photo booth was upstairs, which I kind of feel like I succeeded in through this post alone lmao. Seriously, I had a couple friends asking me where it was because they saw this. Winning out here. S/o to Yesi, Jasmine, and Pun for the laughs. Most people didn’t know there was even an upstairs, which is understandable. The staircase is low key hidden (towards the left staring at the balcony) and you really had no reason to go up there because everything and everyone was downstairs. But it soon became the star of the evening. I wish this came in a gif, but it did have hardcopy printouts. Memories.

These were some of the props for the photo booth. This event was getting more lit by the second. But I definitely gotta stop saying the word “lit” lmao. Especially in this #FOMOblog. It was so bad when it was actually on DX lmao. I was getting annihilated. But anyways. This is when the upstairs came in clutch. It was such a breath of fresh air and room to breathe. The capacity of No Name was supposed to be around 150 people and this was definitely exceeded before even midnight. The entire place was so packed, you couldn’t even move. The event was definitely invite-only, but you know how LA gets. There are people who literally stand by every night just to look for dope events (like this) to go to. So it turns into a “he knows him, and she knows her” situation real quick.

This was the best surprise ever. DJ Amen pops on stage and it was lit the second he got there. Young California in the building. He said he literally just got into town and David hit him to come lmao (a typical day in the life). It was the cutest moment when Amen brought David on stage, which wasn’t easy. Tracking down the man of the hour is never easy lmao but everyone fucks with David so much, he had to literally say hi to everyone. And David just genuinely just wanted everyone to have a good time. Much respect. The evening consisted of slaps by… 5 different DJ’s lmao. Low key the same songs kept getting played by each DJ but it was okay because the songs still hit. Shout out to Brick, Amen, DJ D-Sharp (DJ for the warriors), Noodz, and I hope I didn’t forget anyone else.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BcVZuY2gHjP/?taken-by=hey_ophi

Stealing Ophi‘s flick <3. So many amazing people in one room. I literally didn’t think I’d make it until 1am so I went to the whip and grabbed my j lmao. For some reason, weed gets me up, not down. I gain energy when I smoke. I was so lit when the DJ started playing Mac Dre… geeked.

https://twitter.com/TheSeena/status/938120668717051905

One more for good measure. Shout out to Kehlani, Jake & Papa, P-Lo, Kalin White, Swae Lee, and any other artist who rolled through tonight. This is just the first year too. Gang.

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