We picked a perfect time to abandon Winter in New York City as first-time BUKU Music & Art Project attendees. Our attendance culminated with the festival celebrating their 10th anniversary. Two days, five stages, and tens of thousands of eager ravers still coming out of a pandemic... we had no expectations of how the weekend would go but we packed our bags and headed to New Orleans.

Let's highlight some sets: 

We know TroyBoi for how he flawlessly mixes hip hop samples into his edm sets, but now he’s throwing house beats into the mix, with his reiteration of “California Dreamin” by Chris Lorenzo dropped into “Hey Bo!”. He never ceases to amaze us, delivering one unforgettable set after the other. This was in our top 5 sets of the weekend for sure. We beg the question, why wasn't he a headliner??

Clozee hypnotizes the audience but in the best way possible. Where Rezz’s subliminal messages are dark and cryptic, CloZee’s are illuminating and inspiring. Her set was beautiful and flawless, a testament to how far she has risen up in the EDM world over the last few years. We love to see it! 

In the live music genre, Glass Animals had a very fun production and live performance ending with their hit and major crowd-pleaser "Heat Waves"!

Tyler the Creator had an energy that was unparalleled and closed out the festival in style keeping attendees there till the bitter end. 

The Art:

The artists at Buku Project were next level in skill and created large paintings over the course of the festival that could be purchased on site. Also, what other festival do you know where you can create your own NFTs? We’ll wait…

The Production:

It’s no wonder why there isn’t a deemed “main stage” at BUKU Music & Art Project. Because all of the stages felt like the main stage in terms of production. Each stage was its own unique experience. The indoor stage was the perfect space for the techno music being played and we especially loved the stage that was set on comfy grass for the moments to sit with friends and enjoy the show for an extended period of time.

Unfortunately, the not-so-good:

With a vocalist that supposedly forgot how to sing his own songs, Taking Back Sunday’s performance was disappointing to say the least. Seeing them on this diverse lineup sparked nostalgia, back to our high school days, and we hoped we’d be hit with that same spark seeing them on the largest stage at the festival, but were instead met with off-key, off-beat, karaoke-like performance, sprinkled with what Adam thought was comedy, but just came off cringe-y. 

All-in-all the positives aspects of this weighed out the one bad performance we saw, at no fault of the festival.

We're already looking forward to hearing details about BUKU Music & Art Project 2023!