Artistes shine at Live From Kingston

Sadeke Brooks, Staff Reporter

While it started out as a small event of about 100 patrons, Live from Kingston stepped into the big league last Saturday with a festival-like staging of the event at Hope Gardens in St Andrew.

With many events taking place in Kingston on the same day, the organisers managed to pull numerous persons into the venue which was set up similar to an amphitheatre, with some patrons looking down from the slope onto the stage.

Runkus was rhythmic, while newcomer Sevana was melodious. They made way for No-Maddz, who took a while to get started because of apparent technical issues. For quite some time, the dub poets made random sounds over the beat before singing Top Shotta in dub style. They later grooved to Better Mus Come and received screams for Oneil Peart's Romance. Marijuana was also brought into the mix when they sang about their love for it in a remake of Third World's Now That We Found Love.

Crowd favourite

The energy grew on stage when they drew for a crowd favourite, Pookoo Poo, and at this point, Sheldon Shepherd was now without some pieces of clothing he took to the stage with. As they went through other songs, Everaldo danced around with a breadfruit on his head.

Kabaka Pyramid later blazed the stage with his rebel music, injecting much vibrancy into the event with Ready Fi di Road. Never Gonna Be a Slave got a huge response and showed that Kabaka was indeed growing as a performer. Seamlessly, he went into other songs like No Capitalist, King Kabaka and the lyric-filled Liberal Oppressor.

"Full time Rasta lock dung the place," Kabaka sang, as he spoke about the ills in society and some of the inappropriate content children were being exposed to in songs.

With his band playing impressively throughout the night, Warrior was well-received. But the females were not to be left out, as he catered to them in I Alone. However, the other song for the 'empresses' was cut short due to time constraints. However, the abrupt end to the song did not detract from his performance as patrons were engulfed in his set when he did Well Done and Choppingz.

Kabaka came firing, but Protoje came with much militancy in his army print jacket. He was quite the contrast to his back-up singers who were dressed in white outfits, dancing in unison on stage. His entrance was grand and he entertained with songs like, Who Dem A Program and Kingston Be Wise. There was also a bit of double meaning when he took on No Lipstick.

There was quite the family atmosphere when Chronixx came on as the surprise act to collaborate for Who Knows. Kabaka also returned during Protoje's set, showing comradeship.