FOCUS WALES 2021: THE JUMP OFF
Perhaps the greatest gathering of Welsh musicians is happening in Wrexham this weekend, and amidst the usual rock, pop, folk and indie at Focus Wales 2021 is undoubtedly the most serious selection of Welsh rappers since the Higher Learning open mic at Roxe Jam in the noughties. In total there’s Benji Wild, Culture Vultures, Dirty Alex, Everything Is Now, Juice Menace, King Khan, Lemfreck, Lizzi£ Squad, Luke RV, Mace The Great, PhoreCite, Razkid, Skunkadelic (both solo and with Afro Cluster), Szwe, The Honest Poet, Unity and Yazmean. Also Dregz, my long time partner in crime will be doing a talk and Mr Phormula is usually around some place also, maybe with the Llareggub Brass Band. Bound to be a few I’ve missed also.
Responding to the issues highlighted by the BLM movement in early 2020, the festival hired Natalie Louise Jones to promote and sustain Equality & Diversity as core values within the organisation and they have also broadened their programme selectors to include a more diverse range of industry reps such as, Henca Maduro from Europe’s biggest Urban Music conference ‘New School Rules’ and Tumi Williams from Starving Artists. The welcome result is more Black Welsh (and Wales based) artists than ever before in the rest of the festival too: Aleighcia Scott; E11ICE; Eädyth; Faith; Kiddus; Lucas J Rowe; N’famady Kouyaté; and Indie band She's Got Spies will all be there. It honestly makes for a hell of a line up, even before you begin to venture into the rest of the artists from around the world. If you are there then I highly recommend Punk duo Bob Vylan who put on an incredible show at Lost Horizon last week.
I will be hosting a showcase on the Friday night from 11:30pm at the Town Square, under the name Kaptin Selects, featuring Juice Menace, Aleighcia Scott, Szwe, Eädyth, Brixton based crew M9 Awakening and Skunkadelic, whose new single ‘No Time’ dropped on Friday. Check the video below and hopefully see you at Focus Wales. I’ll try and do a write up for each day I’m there as I have on previous years.
If you are at Focus Wales this year, here’s a little playlist of artists on my showcase, feel free to pass it round to anyone else you know might be coming.
