We are oh so close to uncovering the mystery shrouding the “WHO IS DJ YOLO BEAR?” conundrum. You may recall the anonymous cuddly creature with a flair for Jersey, RNB infused, chopped and screwed beats was scheduled to play 3 shows in 3 cities across the globe on the 26th of October. How is this at all possible? Brooklyn, Edinburgh and London were blessed with the enigma’s prescence on the 1 2’s, but no one really knew who or what was in store…

Thump wrote an enlightening article back in July that laid all the information on the table regarding Yolo’s identity – what do we have? A Rinse FM mix courtesy of record label LuckyMe, a tweet from associate Doctor Jeep (aka Bark Lee) and a snap from Eclair Fifi of the infamous scarf dangling beneath the creatures bucket hat (supposedly emitting a smell of pine nuts). Thump concludes that;

“Yolo Bear could be a multi-gendered, mouthless bear living in a cosmic swag pad, but all signs point to him being a dude. He’s also very likely part of the LuckyMe family, and a frequent visitor or resident of Brooklyn, New York.”

There has been warranted speculation that Norwegian wunderkind Cashmere Cat was the man behind the music, displaying similar production stylings and track selection featuring 90’s RNB tracks that have been spliced into that boppy and eclectic Jersey goodness – speaking of, Yolo’s latest bootleg is flipping dope! Then there’s the obvious linkage established between the producers and their cuddly names – Cats, Bears…Beavers, Turtles(??) Finally, Cashmere has been one of the biggest promoters of the producer over the last year on Twitter, often playfully toying with his followers as to the identity of the creature.Where this logic potentially falls short is that there were reported sightings of the Bear playing in Brooklyn club nights and is purportedly a resident of New York… prior to Cashmere Cat’s first ever New York show, which was on July 24 at Brooklyn’s Output.

SOOOO is Yolo Bear a collaborative project between some other Brooklyn/Europe based connections? Or could it be that Cashmere Cat has simply employed some chronies to front his little side project? Well… given that there were 3 shows at the same time over the weekend this seems obvious… but who are the other two you ask?

Some thorough and insightful research has been conducted on our behalf (basically just searched Twitter for half an hour or so – unfortunately no Youtube vids of the live show uploaded just yet) and it is believed (although not confirmed) that the trio taking up the mixing duties were  Cashmere Cat (New York), Obey City (London) and Eclair Fifi (Edinburgh). This makes sense.

Let’s do the maths – Yolo’s first mix was courtesy of LuckyMe records and hosted on Rinse FM by Eclair Fifi + is signed to the label with Brooklyn based DJ and producer Obey City, a resident of Brooklyn + Obey City played the set before Cashmere Cat’s first official NYC gig at Output (a gig I was fortunate enough to attend!) = DJ Yolo Bear!  It makes total sense right? Genius.

We may have not discovered who is officially DJ Yolo Bear, but at least we’ve narrowed it down to three. Let us inspect some tongue in cheek evidence we’ve collated from twitter (to add to some word of mouth stuff we’ve heard).

That wish was fulfilled…

 

 

AND we got a retweet from Cashmere the day after the event, pretty much confirming what we already knew…

Is there any doubt?? Surely CC is the mastermind and the others are merely fronting. Cashmere Cat is Yolo Bear! Yolo Bear is Trippy Turtle! Einhorn is Finkle! Trippy Turtle is Cashmere Cat! Resolved… at least we think so.

How cool would it be if Cashmere/Yolo/Trippy did a little sideshow tour when he’s down here for Laneway? Within the realms of possibility. Cashmere also announced on the anniversary of release “Mirror Maru” that a new EP is on the way – stoked!