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Grab your pointe shoes and your double cup. Future’s era-defining trap opus DS2 is about to plié its way onto the Brooklyn Academy of Music stage. On Friday, September 19, Grand Marnier is teaming up with the multi-platinum rapper for DS2 Remixed: The Ballet, a one-night-only spectacle at BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House that promises to fuse rap, dance and high fashion into something entirely new.
If that sentence made you blink twice, you’re not alone. This is not your typical night at the ballet. Imagine “March Madness” reframed through choreography by Emmy Award-winning powerhouse Ebony Williams, the first Black American female dancer at Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet and, yes, the woman who slayed in Beyoncé’s Single Ladies video. Add in a corps of world-class Black ballet performers, costumes by Queens-born designer LaQuan Smith (whose high-glamour creations have graced everyone from Rihanna to Kim Kardashian), and a score built on Future’s 2015 triple-platinum masterpiece. The result is a collision of high art and hip-hop that’s as Brooklyn as it gets.
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“DS2 changed the game for me,” Future said. “A decade later and you still feel that energy everywhere. To see a mixtape I made turned into a ballet with Grand Marnier, right here in NYC? That’s different. That’s legendary.”
Grand Marnier is billing the event as part of its “Remix Your Legacy” campaign, and BAM is a fitting host. The 166-year-old institution has long stood at the intersection of classical tradition and cutting-edge artistry, making it the perfect place for trap beats to meet tendus. “This is the kind of bold work that excites us,” says Mari Ogino, BAM’s director of corporate strategy. “It fuses innovation with representation in a way that’s true to our mission.”
Naturally, there’s a cocktail tie-in. To toast the occasion, Grand Marnier is releasing limited-edition GM2 Cocktail Kits through Cocktail Courier. Each kit comes with the fixings for a Grand Margarita plus a custom edible topper featuring Future himself. Ten percent of proceeds will support BAM’s Free Music Program, which brings no-cost concerts to the Brooklyn community.
Tickets are first-come, RSVP-only and likely to vanish faster than Future’s mixtape drops. In other words: Don’t sleep. On September 19, DS2 won’t just be blasting from car speakers—it’ll be pirouetting across a Brooklyn stage, proving once again that trap, like ballet, is all about discipline, drama and defying expectations.