It's no secret that UBC has an extensive campus comparable to a town or a small city. But like every city, UBC has many secrets. Not in the sense of purposeful obfuscation of privileged information, but a vibrant underbelly.
They remain unseen, but equally as dumbfounding as some of the more known wonders. Like study spots where nobody goes or seeing a life-changing movie via the Norm, the UBC Rappers Without Borders (RWB) club is like the hidden smile in the Mona Lisa that is our university.
Listening to Soundcloud previews of artists before the showcase was underwhelming. However, anyone who has any knowledge of live performance versus recorded sessions will attest to the fact that artists — especially hip hop artists — are very different live than they are recorded.
The show started off with a freestyle session between several performers. The rhymes that came from these students, even from thin air, were not only catchy, but on beat and clever.
The two opening acts, Supersapien, who took the stage alone, and Eric $hawry, were joined by the talented rapper Just K and were simply amazing. At one point during $hawry and Just K's set, there was so much energy in the room you could almost see the haze in front of you. When they spat bars, the crowd had an almost automatic reaction to get up and move. Their lyrics reflected the lives of those they were performing for.
From putting in tremendous hours studying to being inexplicably poor, the lyrics were true to the lives of the people spitting them, a fact which is also true of all of the rappers that went on the stage that night.
Traffik, a rapper from Vancouver who started rapping at age 11, came on stage next and dazzled the crowd with fantastic lyricism and rhythm. Traffik never missed a beat. Neither did his club peer, Swabski. Swabski, who is from another walk of life — moving around between America and China, but being of Korean descent — is an ambitious young man. Loud and confident, both Swabski and Traffik have a presence on the stage that demands the attention of the audience.
Halfway through the showcase, RWB invited a guest speaker from Doctors Without Borders — to which a percentage of the proceeds from the night went — to talk about the good work that they are able to achieve with the continued support of clubs like RWB and independent donors.
After this, there was another freestyle session with accompanying dance by local dance troupe, Zaboomafoolz. The second session of rapping was even better than the first. One rapper, Rajan Mandher who was representing SFU, grabbed the microphone during the freestyles and completely blew his verses away.
The last performer, Ekke, was a stunning finisher. Usually when a lot of different artists come on for a long time, people are tired towards the end. Ekke defied that trend as he went on stage and the crowd gathered around. During his set, he had people throwing their arms in the air and when he left the stage, there was a thunderous uproar from the audience asking for an encore. Ekke didn't even get to leave the stage before he was asked to do another song.
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