Ugandan comes third in global hip hop challenge
Jay Sentino (R), Uganda’s hip hop artiste who came third with 301 points performs at the challenge. Above left, the crowd cheers the performers. Photos BY Michael kakumirizi.
What you need to know:
Hip hop artistes around the globe competed for World champion title.
Open House on Buganda Road was last Saturday a destination for hip hop enthusiasts in Uganda. End Of The Weak (EOW), a hip hop emcee challenge that in 2000 began as a weekly Open Mic platform in New York, brought its multi-national entertainment lifestyle and global hip hop brand to Kampala.
Amy Hume, founder EOW, says the challenge was inspired by her return 26 years later, to South Africa, where she was born.
She saw hundreds of children who did not go to school and thought hip hop and music could be an avenue to educate them. Starting off small in the back of a restaurant in New York, EOW spread to UK, Germany, France and Canada.
In 2008, she was introduced to Uganda, and soon began multi linguistic competitions in Jinja, Gulu, Kampala; which all proved progressive. Uganda is the first African country to host the world finals of the EOW.
The festival engaged seven international Eodub winners in a five-challenge battle to determine the world champion. Jonzi D, one of the judges, said selecting a winner was a hard task. “We reckoned lyrics, creativity, skill, and crowd response, but they were all good, every one of them! Wish we didn’t have to.” he said.
“Growing up as an African child, born to freedom fighters in Botswana - my history, the anger, the love, shaped my music.” Lee whose lyrics that emphasised roots as a ‘man of the soil even in Uganda’ got him applause, said.
“I want to use the world title to uplift, teach, create better music and put spotlight on South Africa, for there is no limit to where Hip hop in Africa can go,” he said.
Sentino’s Luga-flow coupled with energetic movement, influenced by his aspiration for dance in Break Dance Project Uganda and Intikana’s several costume changes, especially the nearly native American outfit with which he punch lined a metaphor of Kabaka Mutebi; excited the audience.
The battle summed hip hop relating to the 60’s, a 90 second acapella - rated for craft and diction, freestyle reference to objects selected from a bag, a contest against DJ Snuff’s different music genre mixture, concluded by back and forth group combats.
