Hustle Simmons, Ethel Cee and Fel Sweetenberg highlighted a night of solid indie hip hop at Silk City as local record label, Bee Eater, took over the Northern Liberties venue for their first showcase.
The evening began with DJ sets form Bee Eater CEO Ultraviolet and DJ Akshun. Both are excellent DJs, and as usual, did an outstanding job of playing a great mix of old and new hip hop. As with most indie hip hop shows, things started a little later than expected; scheduled to begin at 9:00, the opening acts didn’t hit the stage until around 11:30 p.m.
LeahNicole, a group composed of b-girl Leah “Krazy K” Caesar and emcee Nikkie “Victorious” Harris, started things off with a very interesting set. Featuring two backup singers, one of which was the amazingly talented Selina Carrera, a drummer playing on post and pans and the rhyming and dancing of Victorious and Krazy K, their set was quite a bit different than the typical rapping to the crowd type of hip hop.
After a brief introduction from host Mars Five, New Castle, Delaware rhymer Keziah was up next. Keziah’s aggressive rhymes and punchlines drew a good number of “oohs” and “ahhs” from the crowd, and although she was an opening act, she gave one of the best performances of the night. She was briefly joined on stage by Hezekiah, who would also contribute to Hustle Simmons set later on in the show.
After the opening acts did their thing, it was time for the Bee Eaters to show the crowd what they were all about. Rather than have each of the label mates perform longer sets one after another, they mixed things up a bit, rotating twice through starting with a brief 10 minute set from each artsist and then a longer showing.
