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Hip Hop and R&B come alive at Day N Vegas 2021, the highs and lows!
It was good returning to Las Vegas for a second time for Goldenvoice’s Day N Vegas (DNV) Festival, featuringperformances from hip-hop and R&B acts at the Las Vegas Festival Grounds, from November 12-14.
I was first there in 2019 for the inaugural festival and of course, due to COVID-19, the festival could not hold in 2020. I left day 3 of the 2019 festival early to catch a flight, so I missed Kendrick Lamar’s hit performance. So I was happy that this time, he was headlining Day 1 of the festival and I wasn’t going to miss it.
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Although I was also looking forward to seeing Travis Scott headline Day 2, the November 5th crowd surge and mass-casualty at his Astroworld Festival forced Scott to pull out of DNV. He was replaced by Post Malone. Performances averaged around 45 minutes, except for the headliners — Kendrick Lamar, Post Malone and Tyler, The Creator each got 90 minutes.
While the emphasis on fan safety struck a hyper-vigilant chord, I was particularly watchful for the spread of Covid. But I was happy with the measure the organizers put in place at the festival grounds. A negative COVID-19 test or proof of vaccination was required on all three days of the festival.
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I went in always with my mask on and took it off while things picked up. It was hot and humid so very difficult to keep a nose mask on all the time. Thankfully there was water refill point for festival-goers. I had good tips from this website before my trip to Vegas, regarding water issues.
As a traveler from Ghana to the festival, one of my other worries was finding the right accommodation but I picked the Downtowner Hotels & Apartments, just like I did in 2019. If you want good places to stay in Las Vegas and other cities in the USA, click here.
One other difference between my first DNV experience and this year’s event was the fact that I went out more to explore Vegas. This time I was more familiar with the festival grounds, and I also downloaded the Day N Vegas app to help me streamline which shows I really wanted to see, since there were three different stages on the festival grounds. Appropriately named Frank, Dean and Sammy in honor of the city’s Rat Pack godfathers, the stages of DNV never skipped a beat.
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I went around the city beyond the strip and downtown to explore the landscape a little more, in addition to the festival itself. Las Vegas also boats of home developments as many homeowners want to be close to the grandeur of the greater Las Vegas area. This city offers a wide selection of luxury homes fit for an exquisite lifestyle marked by an exclusive set of architectural styles. I saw many houses being put up, and the use of a temporary bridge in most setups could not be missed.
Day 1:
Friday brought standout sets in the Dean Tent, from Thundercat to veteran Madlib. One of my personal highlights Day 1 was seeing Crenshaw-bred rapper, apart from his obvious skills as a rapper, he also has Ghanaian origins.
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Over at the Frank main stage, Ari Lennox delivered passion and soul and she was followed by rapper YG. Finally there was the biggest event of the night, the return of Kendrick Lamar, which was also his only live set of 2021. It was an amazing set not just for his rap skills but also the theatrics and dramatization that characterized each song was simply game-changing! Lamar was joined on stage by 16 men in red suits and bowties with different variations of white face paint.
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He was clad in a gauzy white fabric, long hair parted in the middle and topped with a crochet cap. The night closed with an appearance by his cousin, protégé and Las Vegas rapper Baby Keem, with whom he performed “Family Ties” and “Range Brothers.” Then, all the players from the 90-minute extravagance came onstage as he beautifully hymned, “Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst,” striking a vignette fitting of a Baroque masterwork.
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The much smaller Sammy Stage, saw Isaiah Rashad excite fans and getting personal with them. My R&B highlight for the night was seeing Jazmine Sullivan perform her hits back-to-back with massive participation from the crowd.
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Day 2:
Saturday at DNV was punctuated with dynamic talents such as Don Toliver, Baby Keem, Doja Cat and Tinashe.
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Toliver, who performed at Astroworld hours before the catastrophe, asked the crowd for a moment of silence for the victims just after sunset on the Frank Stage. Baby Keem, making his second appearance at DNV, hit the Sammy Stage with a packed crowd that quickly turned into a mosh pit. Security feverishly handed out water to the crowd.
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My favourite R&B highlight of the night was from Lucky Daye, he had moments that made me feel I was at least listening to Chris Brown. Doja Cat dominated her Frank Stage set with a parade of dancers and sultry moves that had fans screaming. Meanwhile, Victoria Monét drew a major audience and rave reviews for her first-ever festival appearance in the Dean Tent. Tinashe continued the R&B love at Sammy, sharing a whole new idea on how to use a trampoline while onstage, giving her golden goddess look a little extra bounce.
Lil Baby was fun to watch, but he’s not much of a performer for me. He literally just rapped his lyrics to his teeming fans until his set ended. Headliner, Post Malone gave a solid last-minute performance, considering he was added to the bill only a few days prior.
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Day 3:
Sunday started off slow for me as all the pressure of running about from stage to stage from Friday to Saturday had taken a tow on me. All eyes were on the Sammy Stage. Joey Bada$$ and Denzel Curry reminded the audience that they were there for hip-hop, pushing the crowd into a frenzy.
Lil Uzi Vert came on 30 minutes late. Eye-blurring, psychedelic visuals blinded the crowd, and his attempts at inspiring everyone to “rage” got me jumping around just so I wouldn’t get stampeded by the teeming fan. It felt as if the crowd had been possessed by some evil spirit and I was happy when Uzi was cut off 20 minutes after he started, to keep on schedule and make way for SZA. He attempted to keep performing, before throwing his mic into the crowd and walking off.
SZA gave one of the strongest vocal performance of the weekend. Tyler, The Creator drew the largest crowd of the three-day event, with his signature style of dark comedic hip-hop performance art.
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Air pollution in slums sickening children; harming brain development- experts
Baby Hawa peers sleepily from the lappa strapping her to her mother’s back. Her mother, Mariama Issahaque, fries yams that she sells to residents and workers here.
One-year-old Hawa looks sickly. Her faint cry is broken up by a weak cough. Mucus drips from her nose.
The smoke from Mariama’s traditional three stone fire mixes with the filthy air – a mixture of tiny particles of sawdust from a wood market, emissions from animals traded here, and airborne chemicals in the smoke from the big dumpsite that has enveloped their neighborhood. Every breath Hawa takes is filled with toxins.
Agbogbloshie is one of the biggest slums and e-waste dumps in Ghana. The large site, on the Korle Lagoon near the centre of Accra, provides the Ghana’s vulnerable with a place to live and trade food, commodities, and electronic waste for income. But oversight by authorities is minimal and experts warn the toxic air is a time bomb, sickening the people here.
Children are among those most vulnerable to air pollution and baby Hawa is paying the price. Mariama, Hawa’s worried single mother, complains of frequent visits to drug shops to buy cold medicines and, when things are bad, to the clinic. Mariama struggles to find the money.
“My child does not fall sick regularly like this when we go to Walewale, capital of North East. We just returned to Accra from holidays, and this has started again,” Mariama says. She knows she should leave for her child’s sake.
“I remember asking the doctor at the clinic why my child frequently is getting sick. But his suggestion for us to leave the area is not within my means. If Allah permits and I get money, I will move. But for now, we have no choice.”
Alex Jagri, an attendant at Servant Drug store, near the makeshift wooden structure where Mariama and Hawa live in an area called Timber Market, sees the impact of the pollution on his neighbours. Flu and cold medications move fast here. He says he sells 35 bottles of cough mixture a week.
“Adults too come here reporting of chest pains,” Jagri says. “I feel bad about the situation, especially when as many as 20 children are brought here coughing and in terrible conditions. I refer the serious ones to the Children’s Hospital. The smoke is too bad and unbearable.”
As Ghana’s economy struggles and the population of Accra grows rapidly, Hawa is one of a growing number of children forced to live in slums and on Ghana’s streets. The slums are on the frontline of air pollution worldwide, according to Cities4Children, a global alliance of organisations working to protect child rights.
The source
One of the biggest sources of air pollution in informal settlements such as Agbogbloshie is solid waste burning. Ghana is fighting to deal with its solid waste. The country generates approximately 7.2 million metric tonnes of municipal solid waste a year, according to data from the Ministry of Sanitation.
For context, that much waste would fill 40-foot shipping containers lined up from Paga, the northernmost town in Ghana’s Upper East, to the southernmost town of Aflao, in the Volta region, more than four times.
Across the nation more than 20 per cent is burnt openly, while 37 per cent is disposed at dump sites. Poor waste management by authorities has compelled informal waste collectors to turn part of the Agbogbloshie slum into a general waste dumpsite that is permanently ablaze spewing smoke across the community day and night.
In the last six months hotspots in Accra have recorded concentrations of the most dangerous air pollution particles several times higher than the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) guidelines recommend.
Agbogbloshie leads the pack with air pollution more than ten times higher than that recommended by the WHO, according to data sourced from Breath Accra, a community driven initiative that provides real-time air quality information.
Health experts in the area are disturbed by what they’re seeing.
“On a daily basis, parents from Agbogbloshie bring their children with cases linked to air pollution,” says Dr Maame Yaa Nyarko, Medical Superintendent at the Children’s Hospital, the only child referral facility in the Central Business District of Accra.
“These include pneumonia as well as allergic respiratory conditions. They often present early but do not have money to pay for services such as admission, x-rays and laboratory investigations.”
Dr Nyarko says respiratory cases are in the top three cases at the out-patient department. They are strongly linked to air pollution, poor ventilation and overcrowding in these communities.
“The danger is that the damage caused to children in slums through air pollution and malnutrition cannot be repaired because, malnutrition leads to impaired immunity as well as irreversible brain damage,” Dr Nyarko says.
“This means they cannot reach their potential in life. They may become adults who are not productive or may have chronic health problems.”
Alarmingly, tests conducted on children living in and around slum areas reveal high blood lead levels, a leading cause of delayed brain development, according to Dr Emmanuel Kyeremateng-Amoah, a health specialist with UNICEF. More than 1.7 million Ghanaian children are estimated to have high blood lead levels.
“Children are not supposed to be at slums because it is dangerous, conditions are unhealthy and unsafe,” Dr Kyeremateng-Amoah says.
He is one of many experts urging the government to tackle the problem urgently. “We have shared our findings with the Ministry of Health, and the Environmental Protection Agency, and are working with the Ministry of Health to manage the children with high blood lead levels.
As a development partner we are committed to supporting the efforts of government to provide the necessary structures and regulations to make the environment healthier and safer for children.”
The impacts of early exposure to air pollution are clearly documented in studies around the world. A new study by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found it increases the risk of developing asthma by early or middle childhood.
A Cities4Children study corroborated Harvard’s findings, adding that children’s exposure to high levels of air pollution can stunt lung growth, and lead to heart disease and increased rates of diabetes in children who would not normally develop these diseases so young.
“With every breath, children take in more air per unit of body weight than adults,” says a 2017 UNICEF report. “By extension, when air is toxic, they take in more toxic air per unit of body weight than adults.”
Awareness is also a problem. While Hawa’s mother, Mariama, is well informed about the dangers of air pollution many more parents are unaware or refuse to believe what the doctors tell them.
At an area called Cable and Wireless, another informal settlement in the heart of Bubuashie and Darkuman communities in Accra’s Okaikwei South, Wendy Adams holds her sickly three-year-old son Nicholas.
Since he was born Nicholas has been suffering a running nose and cough. He is pale, underweight and small for his age. Wendy has taken him to health clinics but she prefers to treat him with traditional medicines given by a local healer.
“I do not believe what the doctors and nurses are saying,” Wendy says. “These are the works of the devil, and we are praying towards his total healing.”
Experts warn that the number of children exposed to dangerous levels of air pollution is growing fast with worrying implications for Ghana’s future.
Ghana’s population has grown, and the slum population has nearly doubled in the three years to 2020, according to Ghana’s 2022 Report on its progress on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
Government and local entrepreneurs act
Government and local community members have made efforts to clean up Agbobloshie and more actions are planned.
Two years ago, under the “Let’s Make Accra Work” initiative led by Mr Henry Quartey, then-Greater Accra regional minister, part of Agbobloshie was demolished and fenced. However, it had limited success. The demolition has not stopped activities at Agbobloshie and open burning of e-waste has just spread to other slums.
More than twenty local entrepreneurs have begun initiatives that are recycling the waste, particularly e-waste.
Government plans to run public awareness campaigns, to set up a drop-off point where people can drop off old electronics, and also a program where people can separate plastics to facilitate recycling.
The state also plans to crack down on companies that buy valuable metals from informal scrap dealers.
That will go some way to fixing the problem according to Mr Larry Kotoe, Deputy Director at the Environmental Protection Agency.
While acknowledging weak enforcement and failures in waste management have contributed to the problem, Deputy Director Kotoe says the government is committed to regulation and actions that will slowly transition to a system where importers of electronic appliances will be accountable through an online registry system.
“Our motivation is to get waste disposed properly and reduce air pollution,” says Mr Kotoe.
Experts say there is no time to waste. Until major progress is made in cleaning up the air in slum communities more and more children like Hawa, and Nicolas will pay a major price.
By Albert Oppong-Ansah/GNA
This story was a collaboration with New Narratives. Funding was provided by the Clean Air Fund. The funder had no say in the story’s content.
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Ice Spice remix stamps Cash Cobain’s “Fisherrr” as the Song of the Summer
Billboard Rookie of the Month, and multi-hyphenate NYC star, Cash Cobain has just linked up with Ice Spice for the long-awaited video remix for “Fisherrr”(feat. BaySwag) [18m+ Streams]. After bubbling the past few years with R-rated anthems over his own ethereal production – creating the playful “sexy drill” sound that he’s pioneered and taken to mainstream heights, Cash Cobain is stamping himself as a serious song of the summer contender with this remix.
Following up his two smash singles “Dunk Contest” (8m+) and “Fisherrr” (pronounced, ‘for sure), Cash is primed for his moment in the spotlight –– hitting 1M Monthly Listeners on Spotify, Top 3 NYC Shazam Charts, having occupied the #1 + #3 slots of the NYC Apple Music Charts, hitting #45 on the Urban Radio Charts and counting, and now landing Ice Spice’s third feature ever –– in the words of COMPLEX, “the summer of 2024 is looking very slizzy”. On the highly-anticipated remix, Ice Spice is simply in top-tier shape.
Adding her signature magnetic ‘it-girl’ flair, charming cadence, and instantly-coinable one-liners, she bolsters the lightning-hot single into astronomical territory with the opening lines –– “Got an attitude but I’m feelingless, so I ain’t mad at you, And I’m tatted too on this fatty-tude, I’m the baddest boo”.
The long-overdue collab from the two Bronx natives is seamless, with her being a tailor-fit alongside the ethereal, dreamy production and silky smooth verses from Bay Swag and Cash. With the recent releases of “Dunk Contest” (watch Genius ‘Open Mic’) and now the Ice Spice-assisted remix for “Fisherrr” (feat. BaySwag), Cash Cobain is using his collaborative momentum from last year to continue elevating his signature sound, showcasing its influential and ever-growing widespread appeal in the process. In the words of Cash:“It’s a beautiful record. It feels amazing, it feels like NYC is back stronger than ever with me and Spice -– two Bronx legends. Get ready for the song of the summer.”
Last month, Cash took over NYC with his birthday show, ‘Slizzyfest’ at Irving Plaza –– a night that was slated as a stacked lineup of NY’s finest, with rumors of an A-list superstar surprise set. After chatter spread online and the hype reached a fever pitch, the crowd became too much to handle and the show was ultimately canceled –– but Cash wanted to give the fans their money’s worth so he ventured into Union Square and threw a makeshift show with his crew, a Bluetooth speaker, and hundreds of adoring fans (read ‘I Went to Cash Cobain’s Slizzyfest and All I Got Was That Classic NYC Feeling’ via Rolling Stone + statement in Billboard).
Also in Billboard, Cash recently teased potential collaborations with Frank Ocean, Travis Scott, Don Toliver (seen filming a music video here), Lil Yachty and more –– a surefire sign of the worldwide stardom soon to come. These recent releases arrive on the heels of a career-defining year in 2023 that closed with the production of PinkPantheress‘ “Nice To Meet You” (feat. Central Cee), which debuted at #20 on Billboard Hot 100 (he also starred alongside her in a nationally-syndicated Apple commercial for the new MacBook).
This was preceded by producing Drake’s “Calling For You” (feat. 21 Savage), which debuted at #5 on the Billboard Hot 100, DJ’ing at Travis Scott‘s Cactus Jack x Audemars Piguet event, and releasing his critically-acclaimed debut solo album Pretty Girls Love Slizzy with Giant Music.
Please find links to stream the new “Fisherrr” Remix (feat. Ice Spice) below, and stay tuned for more announcements:
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