With the pyrotechnic spectacle of Ultra’s closing set on Sunday, the week-long bacchanal of parties, premieres and networking that is Miami Music Week has wrapped up for another year. And, as always, the week hasn’t passed without a few notable, amusing and downright odd things happening. We kept a close eye on events in Miami last week, and here are the seven most unusual things we noticed.
#7 A DUTCH GROUP WON ‘BEST MARKETING PRANK’
Dutch pop-house group Nouveaubeats collected some excellent viral marketing for their latest release by postering the below message all around Miami last week. (The URL emilysnewhouse.com directs people to their new film clip and EP – very clever you lot.)
#6 FOUR HOUSE LEGENDS PLAYED TO NOBODY
Bonafide house music heroes Mark Farina, DJ Sneak and Doc Martin (and later Todd Terry) played a four-way back-to-back set in a hotel room…but from watching the videos that have since popped up on Instagram, it looks like only a handful of friends and a couple of videographers were there to witness the history-making set.
#5 DEADMAU5 WENT TO WAR WITH KREWELLA…AGAIN
Another day, another Twitter beef between Deadmau5 and the Krewella sisters. This time around, Joel ‘Deadmau5’ Zimmerman accused Krewella of faking their Ultra Miami set by playing on unplugged CDJs. Krewella were quick to respond with the below explanatory photo; but what would an edition of Ultra Miami be without Deadmau5 trolling someone?
#4 LIL WAYNE POPPED OLLIES ON INSTAGRAM
No, that’s not a typo. Shortly after playing a Young Money showcase at the Red Bull Guest House, Weezy made his first foray onto Instagram with a suitably abstract clip of him dancing and then throwing down a 180 ollie on his skateboard. Four days and five posts in, we can deduce two things from his new Instagram presence: Lil Wayne will be dropping his new Free Weezy Album very soon, and we can expect to see a lot more ‘gram clips of the Young Money boss skating at his private park in Miami.#3 PARIS HILTON MADE IT RAIN
Sure, you can hate on Paris Hilton all you want, but she and her buddies Carnage and DJ Chuckie can’t hear you for the GIANT BAGS OF CASH they’re wielding. As the below photo shows, Hilton, Chuckie and Carnage were “making it rain” with bricks of dollar bills last week at Miami club E11EVEN…which isn’t actually a strip club.
#2 TIËSTO AND MARTIN GARRIX CRASHED A YACHT…
…into David Guetta’s dock and, as the video below shows, everybody just laughed it off. This must be what life is like when you earn half a million per show: you can borrow a multi-million dollar powerboat from a nightclub mogul, accidentally crash it into your colleague’s rented house, and everyone laughs and laughs like you didn’t just cause most people’s annual salary in damage.#1 AND JUSTIN BIEBER CLOSED ULTRA
Ultra Miami’s closing set has played host to many memorable moments over the years, from Swedish House Mafia’s swansong to Deadmau5 trolling the crowd and his peers last year – but the 2015 climactic set is a serious contender for the most-bizarre-and-epic yet.Headliner Skrillex smashed out half an hour of bass anthems before inviting a cavalcade of high-powered stars to join him onstage. First there was DJ Snake, then Diplo, then Jack Ü collaborators Kiesza and Kai, then Korean pop star (and Skrillex collaborator) CL. Next, Puff Daddy appeared from nowhere for a rendition of Bad Boy For Life, before the much-rumoured cameo from the naughtiest boy in pop.
Around this time last year Justin Bieber was being arrested in Miami for drunken drag racing, and being banned from all the clubs, but this year his program of image rehabilitation reached its peak as he appeared onstage with Jack Ü to close Ultra 2015, lip syncing and robot-dancing along to their collab’ Where Are Ü Now.
Bieber wasn’t the only pop star to make a guest appearance at Ultra over the weekend – Usher dropped into Martin Garrix’s set to premiere their collab, while Ariana Grande made a cameo appearance at Cashmere Cat’s set to perform their track – but watching Bieber mobbing onstage with Puffy, Diplo and Skrill, as Ultra set off its closing fireworks, was definitely the most bizarre thing to happen all week. Watch it unfold below.
courtesy of inthemix
