Axecess Jozi line up changes
With a line-up fresher than a new pair of the latest Air Jordans, the 2015 edition of the AxecessJozi hip hop festival will ignite Johannesburg come March 7 in Newtown's Mary Fitzgerald Square.
SchoolBoy Q is coming to SA. Picture: Facebook
While the debate on the evolution of hip hop rages on, firmly separating the purists from the new kids on the block, those new kids are paving the way for a different kind of genre which easily crosses over into the dance and R & B genres. Falling into this new line-up of young music-makers are SchoolboyQ, Kid Ink and Rae Sremmurd who are on the AxecessJozi hip hop line up.
SchoolboyQ is charting with his hit Studio, while the duo of Swae Lee and Slim Jimmy, better known as Rae Sremmurd, enjoy success with songs like No Flex and No Type. Kid Ink has emerged one of the biggest acts over the last year featuring mega-name stars like Usher and Chris Brown on his album Full Speed which reached Gold status in the States.
FULL SPEED AHEAD. Kid Ink will bring hits such as Body Language and Show Me to the stage.
In a recent interview, when asked about producers such as Pharell Williams and Timbaland making cross-genre music, he said: “They were artists and producers who were writing for other people in all types of genres. It just gave me an open ear for all different types of music and that’s how I approached it.”
A very similar debate is taking place here. Questions like “Is it is Kwaito? Is it hip hop? Is it pop?” are being asked about hit-makers like Dream Team, K.O and Cassper Nyovest. The answer from music lovers is a resounding “we don’t care”. It gets the people moving and over the last year these acts have stampeded through the SA charts dominating with hit-after-hit.
In the last year Nyovest dominated charts with hits such as Doc Shebeleza and Phumakimi while K.O racked up over 1 million hits on YouTube with CaraCara. Nyovest, who will perform at AxecessJozi, agrees about the significance of this event: “It shows you can cross borders and you don’t need to be from any particular place to make good music.”
Supporting his sentiments are Dream Team: “We think it has a huge significance as it provided a platform to showcase our brand on a bigger stage, with international eyes watching. It’s always a good thing when we can attract big international stars.”
Axecess Jozi will be staged on the 7th of March 2015 at Mary Fitzgerald Square, Newtown.
General Admission and Golden Circle Tickets are on sale at Computicket.
