Sam Adams and The White Panda take to the turf

by Taylor Coe '13
ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR

How Sam Adams juggled his role as captain on a Division III college soccer team, classes as a political science major and a full-fledged hip-hop career is a bit of a mystery. But the Massachusetts-native has made it work and made his mark with milestones along the way.

Samuel Adams Wisner,  direct descendent of the presidential Adams family, first hit it big with a remix of Asher Roth’s “I Love College”—flipping Roth’s sentiment to “I Hate College.” Despite the potential for obvious misunderstandings, Adams is adamant that he has no problems with Roth and would even love to collaborate on work in the future, according to an interview with MTV.

As a success in the hip-hop world, Adams is odd company. Mathis Bauchner, contributor to HipHopBlog.com, noted “there’s no falsity in his songs, no gun talk, no coke raps,” and “he captures campus life with unparalleled specificity.” Adams’s specialty is the college circuit, and, in that regard, he’s been a great success.

Besides playing at his own school, Adams has also played gigs at Dartmouth and the University of Colorado at Boulder. Hamilton will only be his latest stop in his constantly expanding tour schedule.

But before Adams goes onstage, The White Panda will perform a set. Another pair of DJs in the mash-up vein along with heavyweights like Girl Talk, The White Panda is boyhood friends Tom Evans (Procrast) and Dan Griffith (DJ Griffi) consuming popular music and spitting it back out with club-ready beats. Mash-up projects are considered a hit-and-miss affair in the music world, and The White Panda has been rated as largely successful.

“Many of the mash-ups have improved on the original song,” noted a reviewer on AWmusic.ca, admitting that other mash-ups at least spurred him to revisit songs cited by the duo.

Before either the White Panda or Sam Adams, we will have a visit from alumni band Applewagon. Composed mostly of alumni from the Hamilton class of 2009, the last show the group played was in the Bundy Dining Hall last semester. Besides that show, the band has not seen a full incarnation since the graduation of most of its members.

Applewagon will take the stage at 2 p.m. down on the Turf Field, with the White Panda to follow shortly thereafter. Sam Adams will take the stage at 4:00 p.m.