UMAW + TCUP present: The Living Wage for Musicians Act featuring Lupin, EssJay, Sym1, and Alonzo

Doors 6pm | Show 7pm | 18+

This event is FREE and open to anyone 18 years or older.

RSVP here but walk-ins welcome!

Join TCUP at the Green Room Monday 5/13 in support of the Living Wage for Musicians Act - federal legislation that aims to ensure that artists and musicians can build sustainable careers in the digital age.

About TCUP

Twin Cities United Performers (TCUP) is a group of musicians and performers throughout the Twin Cities metro area that truly believe that we can make Minnesota the best place in the world to be a musician.

https://www.instagram.com/tcupmn/

The Minnesota Driver's Co-op will be on site to sign-up new riders

Lineup

Lupin

EssJay

Sym1

Alonzo

Lupin

Lupin is the sound of an arrival. Across eight tracks of subverted, expansive pop, Jake Luppen’s solo debut is all sharp edges, a fractured self-portrait pieced together through left-of-center, funk-leaning maximalism. For Luppen, the process of making the record was one of self-discovery and a path to confidence, learning who he could be – and had always been – as both an artist and simply a person.

Although Luppen rose to prominence as a vocalist and guitarist in St. Paul’s beloved indie outfit Hippo Campus, the songs on Lupin feel like meeting him for the first time. He puts it succinctly: “With this record I wanted to get to the point, and say how things were, as opposed to dancing around them.”

Lupin was an unexpected path to confidence. It also offered an escape from the grind of endless touring and a way for Luppen to process major and stressful life events directly through songwriting. Even so, Lupin has a dynamic brightness. Inspired as much by Charli XCX’s Pop 2 as it is Tears for Fears, ‘80s new wave, and Prince, the genre-bending record holds true to a desire to make ‘80s music filtered through modern technology. Featuring synth and programming contributions from Jim-E Stack and Buddy Ross, Lupin weaves together fragmented drum loops, swooning falsetto, tangles of synths, and sharp guitar-lines, the final product is an off-kilter pop-sheen, one Luppen said was guided more by intuition and feeling than anything else.

Essjay

Minneapolis Transplant, EssJay TheAfrocentricRatchet, is bum-rushing the hip hop scene, one lyrical haymaker at a time. An independent femme rapper, EssJay’s style displays the gritty and eclectic upbringing experienced growing up in the rough and culture-rich streets of Chicago. Through aggressive bars, unapologetic braggadocio, and true passion for the genre, EssJay has turned her shortcomings into her greatest assets.

Diagnosed Bi-Polar in the fall of 2017, EssJay has since used music and her growing platform as a therapeutic resource and tool to speak on mental health, normalizing big body confidence, overcoming generational trauma, and more. An intellect upon first introduction, EssJay's ‘ratchet’, turnt up alter ego is not to be overshadowed.

The 2020 EP release, YODY, an acronym for You Out Did Yourself, brandishes boss bad bitch energy with the twerk anthems like Pop It and Golden. EssJay’s stage presence and larger-than-life personality are the draw for crowds attending the annual YODY show. YODYFESt and YodyPalooza, sold out 2022 and 2021, leading to a demand for a bigger space and a bigger show. In 2022, at the famed Minneapolis venue The Cabooze, EssJay put on what has been said to be the best event experience in the Twin Cities to date, with YODY, Again.

Self-proclaimed hood rat, revolutionary, mother, and wife, EssJay represents the complexities and diversities of the Black Queer Femme experience in America.

Sym1

Named in City Pages’ 'Top 10 Artists Poised to Pop,' and unsubscribed from reality as we know it, SYM1, (pronounced sim-ONE or si-MOAN) is a Minneapolis-based pop artist, producer, and vocalist using hyperpop and alternative aesthetics to inspire a renaissance of the early 2000s rave culture.

Not sure if you’ve been acquainted? Her bright, neon colors and flashy, over-the-top fashion are unmistakable. You may have seen her on the First Ave main stage, caught her sharing a bill with Dorian Electra, or even hung out in her virtual venue but whatever the case, “her live show remains as freaky ever with SYM1 flaunting fanciful DIY fetish cyborg attire that’s always more playful than daunting."

Her music often incorporates elements of other genres and playful lyrics as SYM1 has a history of drawing inspiration from inside jokes, internet culture, video games, and the subcultures she grew up with.

Claimed to be the "EDM pop maven" of the Twin Cities, SYM1 released her debut EP in March 2022. ALL THAT U WANT is a multi-genre electro-pop collection, guiding listeners through the stages of grief experienced for the past lives we will never return to and the future lives we may never live, through hyper-realistic and futuristic lenses.

What does THE NXT POPST5R have coming up next? Stay tuned.