The 2009 National Arts Festival in Grahamstown concluded this past weekend after two weeks of exhibiting South Africa’s fine arts. This year however, the representation of hip hop at the festival has been very poor, with only one hip hop spot being available for artists to perform. With the likes of Driemanskap, Western Cape MC Kanyi, Hishaam and members of TrueSight Music who were all in Grahamstown to perform, we can only hope that organisers get their acts together soon. We caught up with Driemanskap and Kanyi to find out how things went at the festival.
HYPE: Was there a good reflection of hip hop culture at this year’s Arts Fest?
El Nino: Hip hop is everywhere there man. I think the last time I saw that many headz was at Back To The City in Newtown. We went to a club called Equilibrium on Tuesday night to perform, but they only allowed hip hop acts to do one or two songs, plus there was only one mic man, and there are four of us here. Club owners and managers here are not willing to give hip hop a platform and it’s killing the movement
Check out HYPEmobi tomorrow for part two of the exclusive interview with Driemanskap on the 2009 National Arts Festival.
