Watch Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig and iLoveMakonnen Make a New Song Together

The final day of New York City’s Governors Ball Music Festival was canceled due to “severe weather and a high likelihood of lightning in the area.” Vice’s TV channel VICELAND streamed the festival and still chose to broadcast Sunday, despite the lack of Gov Ball shows. The network instead filled the time with a variety of segments. For one, they had Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig and iLoveMakonnen make a new song together live on air. Koenig played the piano while Makonnen sang about giving someone choices; he quoted Shakespeare’s “to be or not to be” for the song. Queens rapper Despot and comedians Desus Nice and the Kid Mero stood by and threw in some ad libs. After the broadcast, Makonnen improvised another new song, “It Ain’t Easy Being the Man.” See both performances below.

Ezra Koenig and iLoveMakonnen have a bit of a history together. Back in November 2014, Koenig sang some of Makonnen’s “Tonight” on a radio show. Then in December that year, Koenig, Makonnen, and Despot released the song “Down 4 So Long (Remix).” Koenig has since had Makonnen on his Beats 1 radio show a number of times.

Watch Ezra Koenig with Vampire Weekend on Pitchfork.tv’s “Over/Under”:

Watch iLoveMakonnen on “Over/Under”:

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