Yung Gravy and his DJ letting the breeze carry their luscious locks.

On a rainy Sunday in Syracuse, New York, Juice Jam made its annual return.

By Mattea Vecera / Photos from Jean Mariah

This past Sunday was every Syracuse University student’s favorite day of the semester, where hundreds of girls thirsting over Yung Gravy and guys wearing the same five basketball jerseys flocked to a gravel parking lot on South Campus to see four talented and highly underappreciated artists perform. For anyone who is still confused, Juice Jam made its return on September 18, and we still can’t stop talking about it.

University Union dropped the highly anticipated lineup via their Instagram on September 8, consisting of T-Pain, Flo Milli, Yung Gravy, and Doechii. The reaction was a general excitement for the artists, along with the usual handful of disappointed, spam comments.

University Union’s show poster for this years installment of Juice Jam.

Students began arriving at the Skytop Lot at 1 p.m., crowding the stage and getting hyped for the first set with the help of DJ SaySay.

Doechii finally walked on stage at 2:15 in a stunning long sleeved blue patchwork dress, convincingly singing the lyrics “this is the very best day of my life.” She immediately went into an unreleased, unnamed track, then juxtaposed it with the more popular track, “Bitch I’m Nice”. Afterwards took off her shoes while teasing the crowd by pretending to give them to one lucky person.

Doechii holds up her shoe telling fans that they could have it.

This was just one of Doechii’s comedic bits during her set. It’s clear that she greatly values her audience, which she demonstrated by letting them pick some of her setlist and even trying to bring one on stage with her to perform “Spookie Coochie Live (Interlude)”. Sadly, security refused to let the fan past the stage barrier, but Doechii still made the duet happen by bringing a microphone to them in the pit.

Her set ended at 2:55, which was the sweet spot for a setlist of 14 songs. It was impossible not to enjoy Doechii’s performance, with her immense and versatile talent that spans rapping, singing, and dancing, to name a few. She was the perfect and most underrated undercard that Juice Jam has had in years.

Yung Gravy in his fine china paisley shirt singing to the crowd.

At 3:05, Yung Gravy, TikTok’s new favorite rapper, waltzed onto the stage wearing sunglasses and holding a blue umbrella that matched his button down shirt. While the audience seemed eager to see him, the feeling didn’t appear to be mutual for Yung Gravy as he unenthusiastically spoke through his popular, catchy catalog of songs that seemingly everyone knew the words to. He made sure to keep the crowd engaged though, changing into a Carmelo Anthony Syracuse jersey halfway through the set and dedicating songs to “the future MILFs here”.

Yung Gravy putting on a Carmelo Anthony jersey.

Nevertheless, it made for a fun, lighthearted 40 minutes that brought in a wider demographic to Juice Jam.

Flo Milli commanded the crowd from the moment she stepped out in full matching pant suit glam. She flew through all of her hit songs in a whopping 20 song set, beginning with “Bed Time” and ending with “In The Party”, her most popular track to date with over 130 million streams on Spotify.

Unlike the other artists, she came off the stage and onto the ground, with only a metal barrier separating her from the audience. She did this more than once, spending a good amount of time interacting with each side of the stage and keeping the energy flowing. There were fans screaming her lyrics in all corners of the lot.

Although her set was only 45 minutes long, it felt a lot longer due to the repetitive nature of her discography and flow. This resulted in a lot of exhausted students around the 5:00 end time of her set, with many heading home afterwards.

Probably the most disappointing part of the night was watching ⅓ of the crowd leave before T-Pain came on, and boy, did they miss out. A veteran in the music scene, the insanely talented T-Pain gave it his all and put on a memorable show. Even Doechii and Flo Milli had to join in the pit to dance and sing along with the idol.

T-Pain curated the perfect setlist, playing the most popular portions of 27 of his own songs as well as other well-known songs that seamlessly flowed from one to the next. Everyone was singing along, watching in amazement as he danced and moved around every inch of the stage. Other than stopping periodically to make sure the dehydrated students had water, he kept the same high levels of energy the whole hour.

T-Pain energetically rapping for the small crowd.

While Juice Jam was an overall success, it’s hard to ignore the absence of diversity in genre. Rather than yielding a wide variety of genres with one mainstream, relevant artist to tie them all together, the lineup consisted of 4 hip-hop artists, 2 of whom platformed through TikTok trends, and a headliner that, while talented, is largely disconnected from this generation.

Because of this, the range of students attending was slim, and many didn’t bother staying longer than one or two sets. There wasn’t any incentive to stay until the end, as although many students know the headliner’s hits as passive listeners, the fan base among students in this age group is much smaller. While Sunday was a great day for music fans alike, hopefully we can look forward to a more diverse lineup next year.

Another Year, Another Juice Jam