Twerkin' It: Epic Fest 2013 (Part I)

This year’s Epic Fest has officially ended. Promoters from Slapdash have said that the festival was a great success, with excellent turnouts at all five shows that were held over the four days of the event. I ended up attending two different nights of the fest: Project Wake Up at Infuzion on Wednesday, and The Twerk Shop at Kingdom on Friday. Having never actually been to a hip hop show, I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. What I could gather from what I knew about the people performing at each show and the venues themselves, I could tell that Project Wake Up was going to be a more local-oriented showcase of rappers and emcees, and Twerk Shop was going to be a big ass-dance party.

Project Wake Up was exactly what I thought it would be; younger local dudes on the mic did their thing and put on some good sets, despite the crowd being somewhat small and asleep. This can probably be attributed to the fact that the Summer Breeze show was happening at the same time across town at Aqua Lounge. However, despite the crowd situation, the performers and the people that were at Infuzions seemed to have a good time. A variety of solo sets and groups performed, each with a unique presence that distinguished them from one another. Guys paying respects to classics such as Wu Tang and J Dilla played, but so did believers in the hyphy movement, trying their best to get the crowd amped and having tons of energy on the stage.

The Twerk Shop was what I was most looking forward to going to before Epic Fest. I really wanted to see people get buck wild and check out all the hype about twerking. I got to this show around midnight in hopes of seeing the the latter performances, believing that the peak of the performances and crowd involvement would be that late in the evening. I particularly hoped to catch J Roddy Rod aka The Twerk God and other performers like himself. However, only one act really managed to get anyone to start dancing. That set was incredibly enjoyable, but rather short. The collection of emcees on stage managed to get everyone grooving and a number of people onstage as well, but again, I feel like their set could have gone longer and no one really would have minded. The show went on for another hour afterwards, ending a little after 2 am, but most of the crowd had left by then, taking most of the energy that had been on the floor and stage with them.

All in all, I enjoyed both shows I went to, and it seems that most people I’ve talked to that went to the other shows said it was a good time. My only concerns with the festival were that sets seemed to be rather rushed. It also became rather difficult to tell who was on stage with the sheer number of performers that played. Neither show seemed to adhere to the artist order and setlist times that were posted online the week before. Seeing as how I was not all that familiar with many of the performing artists anyway, this didn't detract from my enjoyment too much, but for those who were more familiar, I can imagine that it might have gotten frustrating. From a casual hip-hop fan’s perspective, I’d say that Epic Fest definitely provided something fun to do last weekend. I wish I would have been able to attend more of the shows that were part of the festival than I ultimately was able to. I recommend that you keep your eyes peeled for future Slapdash events, particularly next year’s Epic Fest.

Here are some more photos from the weekend:

PROJECT WAKE UP