This might be one of the best decisions that Back to the City Festival management has made in the past two years. They have chosen the most relevant and active underground rappers and artists aligned with the Back to the City theme, celebrating 18 years of hip-hop excellence and 30 years of Freedom.
If you’ve been to the festival, you would know how consistent they are in bringing MCs who were popular in their prime and combining them with relevant underground MCs, both old and new. Some of these MCs may not be known to kids born in the mid-2000s or have never heard their music, but when you’re at the festival, you understand why they were chosen. The crowd of 20 thousand people would sing and rap along to the songs performed, which sets this festival apart from others in Africa.
As a hip-hop community, we should appreciate what Osmic Menoe and his team are doing for the culture. It’s up to us as hip-hop consumers to support the culture and stop complaining.
Benny the Butcher is not just an ordinary rapper; he’s a storyteller and survivor, Buffalo’s MVP, embodying the pain, perseverance, and triumph of a true butcher in the rap game. He is the most relevant and consistent underground rapper of our time, successfully achieving commercial and underground success.
From hard-hitting albums like Tana Talk 3 (2018), The Plugs I Met (2019), and Burden of Proof (2020), followed by The Plugs I Met 2 (2021) and 2022’s Tana Talk 4, Benny the Butcher has shown great consistency. In addition to these, there were collaborative albums and work with Griselda. This year, he made a powerful statement with his first album for Def Jam, “Everyone Can’t Go,” and recently released “Summertime Butch.” If this isn’t consistency, I don’t know what is. Despite not only taking shots at rappers or dropping hits, he also survived being shot in November 2020 during an attempted robbery in a Walmart parking lot in Houston, Texas.
It’s clear that Back to the City made the right choice by making him a headliner.
Possible songs he might perform include “Rubber Bands & Weight,” “5 to 50,” “’97 Hov,” “Johnny P’s Caddy,” “Crowns for Kings,” “One Way Flight,” “DR. BIRD’s” (a Griselda song), “Intro: Babs,” “Legend,” “Joe Pesci 38,” and “Bron.”
I believe some of these songs might be part of his set, or he might perform all of them because why not? This is Back to the City, and it’s his first time in South Africa. Imagine him performing “DR. BIRD’s” and then bringing out his cousins, Conway the Machine and WSG. The crowd would go wild, making this possibly the most memorable Back to the City festival ever. Having Griselda Records homies there? Oh lord. Or performing “Crowns for Kings” and bringing out the legendary Black Thought. This is possible because Back to the City usually has an international surprise act. All I’m saying is that everything is possible and can happen, all you need to do is go buy tickets after reading this article.