On the ground at the GroundUP music festival, with Snarky Puppy, David Crosby and more: Photos, Videos

The GroundUP Music Festival, which just wrapped its fourth edition in Miami, aims to dissolve the barrier between musician and fan.

With a scarcity of VIP badges, famous artists mingling with festival goers, and jaw-dropping curation of unfamiliar international talent, this annual musical gathering cultivates an ethos of inclusivity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2em9JW9IHB4

“I program the festival as if I’m going to watch every minute of every show,” he says.

We are trying to create a festival whose name we can trust. And if they trust the name of the festival, they don’t have to trust the name of the bands, to the point where we can bring whoever we want. And I want to move really far in this direction where in five years we won’t even announce the artists at the festival and people will just buy tickets blind, to never even say the names of the people you are going to see until they are walking onstage.

On this supersize episode of The Checkout, we spotlight one of those vibrant lesser-known acts, the Brazilian electro-percussion unit PRD Mais, and take in some of the musical fireworks from Snarky Puppy’s sets in North Beach, where the band provided an early glimmer of its new album, Immigrance.

We’ll also hear folk icon David Crosby, whose new band features League alongside singer-songwriters Becca Stevens and Michelle Willis. Finally we’ll drop in on Snarky Puppy’s collaboration with Innov Gnawa, a Moroccan griot ensemble, in an epic festival-closing set.