Having seen the line up for Jozi fest but not being able to make it, I was happy to see that some of the international acts would be performing at Trinity the following weekend. Unfortunately, on the night, the first act had decided not to pitch. Hyphen, having arrived early was asked to stand in and took the dead dance floor and gave the growing audience hope that the entire night wouldn’t be a fail. American hip hop outfit Eligh and Scarub followed Hyphen with their music. They changed the tone and filled Trinity with hip hop sounds having a fun sample of the Mammas & the Pappas’ California Dreaming. Their rap style was reminiscent of Method Man’s style of rhyme. They were entertaining although not having their own DJ was pretty weird since they had to play the music themselves. They also seemed to fall back on the fact that they came from California a bit much – yes, we know where you’re from, you’ve said it 5 times, thank you. Other than that, they were great, a pity they weren’t playing at a more appropriate hip hop gig like KOL.
Subzero and MC Felon were third to play. It was a great to see an international drum n bass MC because some of the MC’s in Cape Town deserve bottles thrown at their heads because they a) don’t actually rhyme with proper words just a mumble jumble pretending to make sentences, b) MC over all the breaks & drops in a song, completely ruining the whole “rise and fall” point of electronic music and c) don’t shut up! They go on and on as if there’s no actual music playing! Niskerone has MC’d over Hyphen’s set on the odd occasion just for fun but he’s actually great because he knows all the songs and compliments, not ruins, the music. So on that note (!) it was interesting to see how an international MC would fair. Felon helped to hype up the audience and seemed to have a genuine connection with the audience.
The MC continued to work through Heist’s set which was on the same vein as Subzero. Keeping the audience in a good mood until the final set of the night from Damage Inc. Owners of the Devastation brand in Cape Town, Multicrisis and Pziezzo Electric play their brand of hard drum n bass, (most tunes being produced by the duo) back to back but unfortunately I had left before they began to play. Over all it was an interesting night out at Trinity fill with many visitors expecting house music verses many visitors who were there specifically for the night’s line up. Hopefully, the bass music nights at Trinity will continue to grow.
