The Kiprich and Movado show presented at the Guyana Football Club ground on Friday last was maybe as good as fans could expect from two young headlining artistes only one half of who locally really has a big tune to his name.
Kiprich was wicked, displaying superior performing expertise and an extensive hit list in comparison to his Jamaican colleague Movado. Stepping out on stage to loud greetings in a hooded outfit, Kipper had ‘the place locked’ with his lineup of tunes including “Telephone Ting” and “The Letter”.
The Kipper was the second artist in the space of a few weeks to have performed in Guyana and almost lost his clothes. Possibly not aware of the ferociousness of the GT female fans he attempted to get close to the ladies to give them a rendition. To his surprise he lost one side of his sneakers and would have lost his pants too were it not for the security guys who assisted him back on the stage. The artiste, declaring, “Guyana nice” performed in one show for the rest of his set, before responding to an encore.
Movado got on stage at around 1 am to much fanfare as he belted the first notes of his hit song “Real McKoy”. Running through this along with a number of other hard-hitting dancehall tracks such as “Weh Dem A Do”, “Full Clip” and “Mine How You Dis”, the artiste worked with patrons.
Early on, however, Movado saw the risk in getting involved with the ladies from Georgetown, as they were ready to drag him off the stage too. Proclaiming that he learnt Guyana was “a bad man place” the artiste for whom DJ warfare is a major part of his persona took a bow about half an hour after hitting the stage.
However, before the artistes got on stage in a whirlwind of dancehall tracks party goers should know, promoters Rolex International and Stereo Sonics made it their duty to ensure the ground was secure “vexing” this reporter as he attempted to stroll into the ground. Taking a lesson out of the Akon promotion book, patrons at least early on, were subjected to thorough searches at two checkpoints. No problem. It served the purpose as no one was shot and the show went on smoothly at the venue, which was mostly dry (after earlier showers), well utilized and brightly lit.
Waiting for the show to begin was a bit of a drag as the sound system DJs seemed to be a bit out of it. Maybe after tramping on the road all day, seems they could not get the crowd hyped. They were some high spots though. For instance, when Antsman from Slingerz took the turntables he got a bit of a reaction from the crowd. As the time “tick-tocked” up to 11, then 11.30 pm, thoughts were beginning to turn toward home after an already long day. Somewhere shortly before 12 pm things began to look up as the MC DJ Bevaughn announced the start of the programme. Using tracks in lieu of a live band, Jory the hype local artiste out of the Brutal Jammers camp held it down with his popular raps “Dead” and “The Girls a Cry for Me”. Both sing along offerings among snippets of his local stories.
An artiste who seemed to have been in hiding for a while, Alabama, kept it rolling along. Now apparently working out of the Vision Sounds studio ‘Bama’ came heavy with a new song, “Nasty”, based on his view of persons who were trying to oppress the business, and his main hit tune “Dem don’t Care”. The artiste held it down as the crowd sang his tune word for word.
The X Factor dance group provided the factor that was missing a bit earlier that is the hype. Shelly G coming off a tough decision at the Carib Soca Monarch enjoyed her segment as much as the fans doing her top song “Touch Meh”. She added a bit of flavour, doing pop hits from Tanya Stephens and Keyshia Cole before jumping back into her “Celebration” on the home-grown ‘thug horn’ rhythm.
First Born’s performance was not the group’s most inspiring, though this was not for want of effort. The group needs to look at popularizing a fresh crop of songs for the massive out there. basstone@lycos.com
