This is a bit later, a week after Back to the City 2013, but I feel I have to say this. I enjoyed my first B2TC2013 experience...The girls, the food, the booze and the music. But that does not mean that every performance was 100% on point. I feel like it's my duty as a lover of local hip-hop to single out the rappers that didn't bring their A-Game to the festival so hopefully the work a little harder or they quit and find something else they're good at. There are rappers that are obviously unkown so sadly I cannot point them out, but there are some that stood out which is a great thing to do when know one knows you from a grain of salt. And I only started listening at night so if you performed before that sadly I cannot comment.
The Good: The acts I'm classifying as good are the rappers that suprised me, acts who wouldn't think would rock the crowd for whatever reason. There was a rapper from the Eastern Cape and one from Durban who killed their performances. He dropped a dope beat and complemented it with great verses with dope punchlines. One thing they did that other local acts did not was stop the beat whenever they dropped a punchline, making sure the crowd heard it. I cant say much cause I don't even remember their names, but if they don't mess up they can make some sort of career from this.
The wellknown rappers that stood out were Proverb, Reason, and Tumi but that's cause they're on tv right. So they're expected to deliver. When Pitch Black Afro stepped out and killed, and someone like Infa (from the "extinct" skwatta kamp crew) got on stage and rocked the mic that was something else. Pitch Black performed his self titled, age old banger that sold him the 1st platinum album then moved on to some new songs. Showing he's serious about a come back, and then Infa performing songs we've never heard but delivering a performance signalling he's worthy to go in the game as a solo artist. That's what really got me and the crowd going. Zues also was able to hold his own.
There was also a crew from the eastrand whom I don't really know the name but came out with a full band which I thought were pretty cool. But when they started performing covers of AKA's Jealousy and other S.A songs I was disappointed. All in all though these are some of the acts that made my night.
The Bad: The good and bad are usually so relative, but at that concert we all knew who wasn't bringing it and we weren't shy to share it with each other. Only if they gave us a mic or tomatoes so we could share it back with the wack acts. There were people like Spaceman who made an epic entrance on stage with a space suit we all thought was super trill, but when he started rapping we all thought it a good time for a food and beverage break. Spaceman's flaw was creating such great expectation than not matching his performance. The other act that made a BIGGGG mistake was H2O who decided to perform their new track before before reminding us who they were. They only performed their old school hit, "It's Wonderful", after a wack ensemble of their new song/s. H2O had it's time, I do believe they should find jobs and appreciate the moments they had in the spotlight. Put the mic down H2O. The Festival also revealed that Jay Stash still exists, Pro-kid didn't wipe off the face of the planet afterall. He was also part of the bad, everyone else's name I probably forgot.
More bad worth noting is that Gingerbreadman did not get to perform when he was scheduled to perform around 7 or 8 at night. The schedule was 4 hours late and some acts were axed while Tumi, Reason and others had to cut their performances short which did not make sense when many unknown artists got to perform full sets.
All in all though it was a good show, Looking forward to its growth and expansion. Follow @ttigersstory
