Cal Poly ASI is bringing American rapper Swae Lee to perform at Cal Poly on Wednesday in a concert free for students. The night will open with a student DJ duo: agriculture business junior Ben Martin and business administration junior Carlton Brown.
ASI will host the concert in the Cal Poly Recreation Center Main Gym (Bldg. 43), which can hold up to 3,500 students, according to ASI student musical entertainment coordinator and student manager for ASI events Katie Pierce. Doors will open at 6:00 p.m., with student DJ I.P. “What’s the Addy?,” performing from 7 – 8:15 p.m. Swae Lee will perform from 8:30 – 9:30 p.m.
Registration, which opened and sold out on May 14 through ASI Access, is required. Students can attend for free with their PolyCards and government-issued IDs.
As a five-time Grammy Award nominee, Swae Lee is best known for his song, “Sunflower,” with Post Malone, which was featured in the movie Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. He has released five albums: Swaecation, Sremmlife, SR3MM, SremmLife 2 and Sremm 4 Life.
After an ASI student interest survey demonstrated student interest in bringing a rap artist to campus, ASI chose Swae Lee to perform this spring, Pierce said.
“I personally am a huge fan of Swae Lee, so it’s cool to be able to bring him here,” Pierce said.
With experience DJing at Super Bloom and a concert in Cabo San Lucas at Mango Deck, Martin said he is honored to open for Swae Lee.
“I grew up listening to Swae Lee since I was in middle school, so it was definitely a full circle moment to be able to open for an artist like Swae Lee,” Martin said.
Martin and Brown use house music in their mixes, a subgenre of electronic dance music.
“Rave culture is starting to really become bigger and bigger,” Brown said. “The thing about rave culture is it is a group of people just there to enjoy the music, and [it is] the DJ’s job to take the audience on a journey.”