I hosted my first event ever on Sunday, December 18th and it was everything I had hoped for and more.
I’m not going to say that everything went smoothly. Not at all. There were a few hiccups here and there (just teething problems) but for the most part, it was really really dope!
Backed up with support from some of the young talented producers in Kenya; Playmakr, Kevin Grands and Ricco Beatz, and some from Southe Africa; Shayzar Zimanyi who is a multi-award winning producer and Aytee who were both part of the production team that worked on Gigi Lamayne’s Ground Zero Mixtape which won Mixtape of The Year at the just concluded South African Hip Hop Awards.
Backed up by Frankie and Kid Willy on the decks, Unkut The Cypher, which went down in Karen, officially kicked off at 4 p.m. Seems everyone who was there was ready to spit some bars because we had to cut short the open mic session because of time.
Some of the acts who really had bars, were entertaining and made an impression were:
Steph Kapela
Born Stephen Nyankuru, Steph got his stage name “Kapela” from his high school art teacher during an art and music festival where he and a friend sang in acapella. Steph has featured prominently in Atwal’s (Kenyan music producer) new album Trap Heaven in songs such as Like This, Rotate, Over You, Sweet Sixteen and Work.
Flexing on a beat by Ricco, here’s a little taste of what he was about at UnKut.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BORfGYtABW1/?taken-by=thispreciseruby
K Green (AD Family)
Part of the collective that is Alliance Domini Family, I first met K Green last year as he and team mate, Boutross, were part of The JumpOff Freshmen class. They’re a unit that I’d say really loves making trap music but make no mistake, you can get bars (and a little entertainment) from K Green’s performance at UnKut The Cypher.
The beat was made by Shayzar Zimanyi.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BORJMLPAADb/?taken-by=thispreciseruby%20
PRO
Pro has said before that he can easily switch styles, from Kapuka to raw Hip Hop and it was clear on Sunday that he was there as a Hip Hop artist. With bars flowing, he continued to spit that fire and he only stopped to give time to the rest of the acts.
Wawa
I don’t know her personally, hadn’t even met her before the event but a comment she made on my Facebook page made me really curious about her. We announced that it was time for open mic and she didn’t shy away from letting everybody know just exactly what she was about. Rapping on the Kevin Grands beat, after the end of her performance we were left asking for more.
Here’s hoping that there will be music from her in the coming year and she has me in her corner all the way. After all, in a game heavily dominated by the fellas, it’s only fair that we uplift each other and show these dudes that women in Hip Hop can match up, right? 😉
https://www.instagram.com/p/BORzgkjAR-n/?taken-by=thispreciseruby
There are definitely other performances worth noting down but I’ll wait until the final edited videos are out so you can see exactly what you missed if you didn’t come through!
I can confidently say that the younger generation of Hip Hop artists is ready to be seen and heard and I’m glad to be a part of that movement.
