LONDON: Jazzlive at The Crypt

Friday 13th September, 2019

8:00pm

Event information

For the first time ever Drizilik and the Freetown Uncut band will be travelling to the UK. During this trip they will be performing at festivals and gigs around the UK, as well as meeting artists, producers and personalities to better expand their view of the music industry and put Sierra Leone on the map!

Benjamin Menelik George broke onto the Sierra Leonean music scene with his 2015 hit single 'Pop Collar'. Known as Drizilik, he has featured on the Vote Salone nationwide tour, received the NEXTE young entertainer award and Best New Artist at the first National Entertainment Awards of Sierra Leone. He also performed at the first TED talk in Sierra Leone and was named one of the 50 most influential young Sierra Leoneans in 2018. Most recently, he was featured in the Nowness series Scenes on the future of Sierra Leonean music. His musical style is a combination of hip-hop, afrobeat, dancehall and indigenous sounds like Bubu Music. Drizilik focuses his energy on live performances and multilingual lyricism which is rarely practiced by hip-hop artists in Sierra Leone.

The Freetown Uncut [FTNU] band are Emmanuel Edwards [drums], Solos beats [keys & production], Francil Johnson [keys] and Reginald Thompson [bass guitar & sax]. They play live with many artists in Sierra Leone including Drizilik, Block Jones, Yung Sal and Emmerson, and run the training programme for the Freetown Music Festival. In 4-6 weeks in the lead up to the festival, the band rehearse and train with every artist scheduled to perform on the main stage. In 2019 they learnt 180 songs by heart in the 4 week rehearsal period, performing for 8 hours each day.

Watch Drizilik here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkvKuwJfl0E