City Arts Fest 2012 bounded through this neck of the woods last week, and I was lucky enough to catch some of the Fest’s highlights last Thursday and Friday.
You can go here for a more exhaustive report (and several different photos) from my two days camped out at the Showbox SODO, Neumo’s, Barboza, and the Crocodile, respectively. Meantime, here’s your Cliffs Notes from the hip hop contingency to go with the enclosed pics:
Thursday night, I caught Mos Def, as well as some great local hip hop, at the SODO. Yeah, the venue’s still one of the most annoying music spaces in town, but glass half-full time: The show was pretty awesome. In addition to basking in the glow of a hip hop royalty headliner, local MCs Thaddeus David, Larry Hawkins, and The Physics offered Mos Def solid support.
Last Friday’s Neumo’s set also provided a hip hop extravaganza, this time all homegrown. The Good Sin served up socially-aware lyrics and a baritone voice that impressed me mightily, high-school-age MC Key Nyata laid down gothic hip hop that utterly subverted his tender years, and Kingdom Crumbs changed things up with a trippy and party-centric set that painted frescoes on frontal lobes (even without the benefit of the blunt being passed around and smoked openly).
Fresh Espresso‘s headlining set was reputedly awesome, but other musical acts called. More on that, later…