I went through on saturday and sunday. generally, the event was dope - especially since it was the first of its time. as MrC already pointed out there were a lotta thngs going on - basketball games, b-boy competitions, other dance competitions, rap battles, skateboarding and bikes, pimped out rides (jokes), graf, dudes recordin joints, fleamarket type set up of different stores and exhibitions, fashion shows...it was really a lot to take in which was dope for variety purposes but it left some areas without spectators. for instance Ras performed and nobody was there to see it...same thing happened to Obita and i'm sure it happened to a lot more events/performers. i saw dude rockin to the ppl playing basketball - thats like 15 ppl max. it was great 2 have a million kids up in there supportin, but where were the ppl who wud lisn to ProVerb, B.Sharpa, Last Days Fam, etc? i saw a bunch of what looked like Jozi supporters, and thats good, but where was evry1 els? they all only seemed to appear when the awards started.but that just reminded me that a lot of ppl who supprt that type of music are rappers/producers/etc themselves.
presenters were...erm...interesting. Gogga (sp.) seemed like he didn wna b up on stage. infact, it seemed like he didn kno he was presenting an award. that Sizwe cat from MTV needs to chill, he just started swearing for the f*** of it and justifying it by saying its a hiphop event. on some "this is hiphop right, so how they gon not expect me to swear"
what was also funny is that he managed to mention Roach Inc, Buff pound, The Anvils, PTA like 20 times in 30 seconds. nice one Buff...u might not have gotten the award but u defntly got some free marketing. thnk there was a thread not so long ago here on AG about kwaito being dead - well Mpho from Yfm seems to think so...when she was on stage she straight up said hiphop is/has killed kwaito. guess thats a topic for another day.
on the performances, B.Sharpa was extremely well received by the crwd. it was actually quite deep. Molly, who performed on Saturday, was disturbing. i mean, like i mentioned there were little kids there. and here's dude rappin bout his penis, climaxing and orgies, whatever else is in his rhymes. not a good look. Maggz, Les and Bongs hooked it up with that "Fire" joint...nice one. and a m'rapper will always be a m'rapper - Reason was backuping up ProVerb during Verbs performance. at the end Reason starts shouting out release dates for his own album...hahaha...gotta love emcees. guess when u get that chance u gotta take it. and Amu and Selwyn...not bad...Skwatta Kamp performance was wack...Tumi and Zubz was not mind blowing at all...
actual award ceremony was alright - cuda been more polished in terms of execution but it was only the first one. some idiot turned on the lights before they announced the last award. ppl started getn up to leave and Lee is on some "where is evry 1 going". Ready D's speech was tops. big ups to him.
Hype gets a ten out of ten for effort. they have set a high standard for themselves, hopefully things will go much smoother next year, and hopefully it will be better attended as well. to those who cudn make it, hade for you. to those who could but didn, shame on you. to those who were there...hope u enjoyed it as much as i did. even with all its down points, i still think it was a really good event.
