It’s easy to see why Jarbo, as a decade-plus veteran in the nerdcore hip-hop scene, fit in.
The Phoenix-based rapper has dropped tracks this year about Mario, Princess Peach and "The Mandalorian" star Pedro Pascal. His most recent album is a 26-minute ode to professional wrestling that includes a feature from WWE’s Xavier Woods. The next record on his to-do list is a rap album for children, backed by over $30,000 in donations on Kickstarter.
In Yuma, Marquez’s venue is lined with arcade games and pop culture memorabilia. One signature burger on their menu is the Demogorgon, a nod to Netflix’s "Stranger Things." The font that decorates signage inside is 8-bit pixelated.
“I call it the most cozy 300-cap room you’ll ever see,” Jarbo says. “There's video games, there's pictures, there's posters — there's so much imagery from the '80s and '90s, referencing so much pop culture that we all grew up loving.”
When Jarbo was approached about curating his own music festival, he knew exactly where to host it. From that idea came Dream Master Mixtape, a three-day music festival taking place from May 12 to 14 that synthesizes both indie rock and hip-hop.
It’s slated to be one of Yuma’s biggest music events in years. Yuma is the state’s third-highest populated metropolitan area, but is geographically on an island, positioned roughly three hours by car from Phoenix and four hours by car from Los Angeles. In visits to Yuma over the years, Jarbo says that the intimacy and budding music scene makes it the perfect city for a festival.
“It's a place that can benefit from something like this more so than anywhere else — I call it an oasis in the desert,” he says. “There's just hungry, passionate fans of music out there and they deserve something nice.
“You can get a great show in Phoenix any day of the week, so I think it’s much more appreciated and valued to bring something like this to a place that maybe doesn’t get it all the time.”
The lineup is noticeably Southwestern, composed mostly of rappers and indie rock bands from Arizona and Southern California. Three out of four headliners hail from Phoenix — AJJ, Futuristic and Mega Ran himself — while Codefendants, a group that combines elements of ska, hip-hop and post-punk, comes from California.
AJJ’s Dream Master Mixtape performance will come just two weeks before the release of the folk punk band’s upcoming studio album Disposable Everything. Futuristic should be able to combine the lineup’s two most prominent genres with his roots in underground hip-hop and recent forays into more guitar-driven pop-punk and nu-metal.
Beyond the headliners are many gems, like Open Mike Eagle, an L.A.-based experimental rapper whose past collaborations span all the way from Two Door Cinema Club to MF DOOM. Whitney Peyton — described as a “firecracker” by both Jarbo and her own Spotify bio — is another genre-bending L.A. emcee. She'll be joining Mega Ran on tour this summer.
There’s also indie pop band Boris & The Joy, fronted by vocalist Boris Pelekh (of punk band Gogol Bordello) and Nickelodeon’s "The Naked Brothers Band" featuring Nat and Alex Wolff.
The festival’s moniker — Dream Master — shares a title with Jarbo’s 2020 memoir. The nickname comes from his fascination with controlling dreams and the power of free will. Specifically, “Dream Master” comes from the 1988 film "Nightmare on Elm Street 4" and the 1990 NES video game "Little Nemo."
“If I could just reach into my dreams, who would I put on a bill?” asks Jarbo rhetorically. “This is the result.”
In planning the festival’s logistics, Jarbo was careful to avoid the afflictions that haunt many festivals. The show will be indoors to avoid inclement weather and the Arizona heat. Attendees are offered discounts at certain Yuma hotels. He’s even working on setting up a shuttle service.
“To me, ‘festival’ kind of invokes the imagery of a $50 beer and hot dog, sweating your behind off and making really tough decisions about whether you want to see your favorite band or get water and be hydrated,” Jarbo says.
When you dig into the festival’s undercard, you’ll find a lot of Yuma artists and DJs, another decision that was purposeful. Jarbo wanted to try and make at least 20 percent of the lineup local, so he asked his Yuma connections for recommendations and parsed through CDs, demos and music videos to find artists he wanted on board.
Jarbo remembers just how meaningful bookings were when he started performing years ago, so he wants to be part of paying that forward to Yuma performers.
“There’s nothing worse than a big thing that comes to your town, takes a bunch of money and runs,” he said. “I think it’s so much more important and impactful to be able to leave some of that money and social currency in that town.”
The rapper is hoping this is the first of many Dream Master Mixtape events in the state. He’s already eyeing places like Tucson and Flagstaff for future spots, and he hopes attendees and artists are excited about getting in on the ground floor of a potentially recurring event.
For now, though, Jarbo’s eager to see his fans interact with fans of other artists on the lineup, a merging of music communities in a venue that Jarbo is proud to associate with.
“I think anybody that comes (to Red Moon Ale House) is going to immediately feel what I felt the first time I stepped in there,” he said.
Dream Master Mixtape Festival. May 12 through 14. Red Moon Ale House, 130 South Main Street, Yuma. Three-day passes start at $120, before fees, and one-day passes start at $50 on the Red Moon Ale House website.