Hip-Hop is a genre of music that addresses social ills, celebrates the good life and brings about messages of unity. It is a genre that is mainly misunderstood as some of its lyric may contain profanity, with music videos that show gyrating women.

Hip-Hop in my eyes is two-fold, it is either underground or commercial. Underground is the genre that almost never makes it to commercial radio stations, usually played at artists’ gatherings that are called sessions.

Commercial is what is commonly on the market, the commercial album usually receives much airplay and usually leads to instant celebrity status.

Back to the City is an annual festival that started as a concept between Lerato Lefafa and Osmic in 2006. The event celebrates social cohersion as it brings the various forms of art to the same platform.

Held this weekend on Freedom Day this year’s festival saw dance crews, a basket ball park, a skater’s lane, food and clothing stalls with two different performance stages that included names like Tumi from Tumi and the Volume, Proverb, Zuluboy, H20, Siya Shezi, iFani and Maxhoseni.

“The festival aims to celebrate Hip-Hop and youth culture through an afternoon and evening of live performances, including street art and exhibitions with the aim of bringing the youth back to the city,” explains Head of Communications for the festival, Lerato Lefafa.

“The significance of Back to the City being hosted on Freedom Day, lies in the fact that it is one event where people from all walks of life share a common goal: expression of freedom through the hip hop artform,”she continued

Through a social network event invite, it was then that I noticed that two Eastern Cape(EC) artists, Lush we Capital Effect and Ohayv, had made it to the Top 20 list; a list that ultimately selects five artists that will perform at the festival to stand a chance to win R10 000.

Lush’s an artist from Mdantsane, East London while Ohayv hails from Port Elizabeth. Their style of music is not that different from each other in that they both communicate messages of love in their content yet their sound is quite different.

“The type of music I do is Soul Hip-Hop as it has elements of soul expressed through verses in Hip-Hop,” explains Lush.

He expresses gratitude when asked about his journey to the Top 20 of the festival. “It was a great feeling knowing that out of all the entries my music made it Top 20. God spoke through music and I was chosen even though I didn't make it to the top 5 I am still grateful to those who took the time to sms which put me at number six.”

Lush mentioned that he got onto the Top 20 list through a message that  was sent out through social networks, calling artists to send their songs and images with a biography.

“I saw the notice on social networks and decided to put my details in there and the rest was history. Even though I didn’t make it, I believe a day will come when my music will be heard through all sphere's, the back to the city top 20 was another way of taking me closer to my dream,” he adds.

The R10 000 challenge was setup for upcoming rappers and producers to get a platform for exposure. R5000 was allocated the categories of rappers and producers,” explains  Lefafa.

“The challenge was won by rapper Siya Zulu and producer Lastee. The top 5 rappers and top 8 producers were chosen after an online public voting process. On the day of the festival they performed and competed against each other live on stage in front of an audience and judges panel. The win was based on judges and audience votes. Each winner will receive a cash prize,” explains Lefafa.

“It is known that cracking the business is not easy, so the R10 000 challenge was designed: to give performance opportunities to those who aren't already established. Interested parties should keep pushing hard or enter set competitions.”

Even though Lush and Ohayv did not get to perform at the festival, two other EC artists, Mzayifani ‘iFani’ Boltini and Bongile ‘Maxhoseni’ Pateni made it to the other stage with the national and international artists.

Maxhoseni’s rhyme and lyric is notoric of the clicks in the Xhosa language that flow on top music to create a Xhosa Hip Hop. He credit his musical journey to faith, dedication and pure luck.

“I have been performing around the EC at sessions such as the SoulClap sessions. I got a call from Ozmic, one of the organisers, to come and perform and I accepted,”explained Maxhoseni.

“I felt honoured as the festival gave me the opportunity to represent EC and I’m excited that our province supports us.”

iFani performed to a delightful crowd that cheerfully sang along to his lyric from his song ‘Ewe’ and some new sounds that the artist says will be in album that comes out Monday 29 April.

“The album is called 'I believes in me' (sic) and will be available nationally,” says the artist.

He mentioned that he was happy with the support he had received from his fans and expressed disappointment with the government.

“The support has been tremendous from the people and I am extremely grateful for that however I am disappointed as I feel that the government is not doing enough to support artists, I mean if that were the case I would not have had to move to Joburg,” he says.

“Each artist is chosen on merit. Back To The City is not about just Johannesburg artists, but those making moves across the board,” Lefafa explained on the diversity of the artists who got to perform.

Artists such as Zuluboy, performed songs from their new and unreleased albums. “I performed at the festival to ensure that Hip-Hop lives on, it’s in the support of the art movement,” said Zuluboy.

“The album is called ‘Amachingra’ and is inspired ‘Zebra Force’ a song by Joshua Nkomo from Zimbabwe who was a politician for the Zebra Force,” he explained.

According to Zuluboy the album introduces Hip-Hop to sign language and the deaf community through signing in the dances.

“The album puts a spot light on sign language as the deaf community is usually ignored and misunderstood and most times they cannot understand our music and in this album we’re inspired by the deaf community stories,” he adds.

Menzi Dludla of H2O came with, a new artist from his record label, Natural Style which Dludla says is a fusion of creativity and what he terms ‘untinted music’.

“We’re bring the old school Hip-Hop back to the people and since it’s Freedom Day we thought why not bring Natural Style to share his style of music,” said Dludla.

“The album is called Eyestyle and features messages of harmony and is largely inspired by things that happen within society and seeks to promote unity while allowing people to enjoy Hip-Hop with music that is entertaining,” said Siphiwe Dlamini of Natural Style.

As the evening wore on, the Basket ball courts were empty, with skaters and bikers doing their thing. Most platforms that were filled were the two Hip-Hop stages were the beat battles took place and dance crews tried to outdo each other with complicated dance moves.

EMC, a Hip-Hop group from USA took to the stage and performed songs from their album Duval ‘MastaAce’ Clear , a group member, says is available on iTunes.

“We’re excited at the chance to be in South Africa to perform to the crowds here to experience how they receive our music, these are indeed exciting times,” said MastaAce.

“Unfortunately the album is no available on local stores however we’re amazed as the crowd sang along to our songs which means they support our music,” he added.

The group has performed at the festival three times and hopes to come back soon.

“We hope to serve as an outlet for artistic expression, grow the local hip hop culture and better rank it on a global scale. Bookings are made by individuals who are actively involved in the SA Hip-Hop community, so they are based on the work artists put into their craft and the impact they have made,” Lefafa concludes.“