Cultural Evelvation Brandies Bar, Manchester The last Cultural Elevation night in Brandies Bar was hype. Around £1000 was raised for the MOSSCOP foundation in Manchester. Friday 4 Feb saw the standard of entertainment being taken to that next level on Alsager campus. More people turned up for a start, (425) and the entertainment provided which the eager audience were about to witness was off the hook to say the least. Dancers, MCs, a live band, a DJ who was on the mic as much as he was mixing, and a general positive atmosphere surrounded the whole night. The charity organisation for which the whole night was organised was Breakthrough Cancer, a breast cancer awareness foundation and nuff love and respect goes out to all those involved, particularly the audience who came along because they truly helped as all admission fees went straight to Breakthrough. (£1500 was raised – Biggup) The performances kicked off at 9:30 with the All Urban dance group (a student based project) who represented with an extravaganza of a set. All respect due to every dancer who participated because they kicked the night off with an energetic and physically hypnotic performance. The DJ, Mpegwa (of TeazeDem Productions) held his own amidst a night of live performances and he managed to keep the crowd bubbling between all performances throughout the entire evening. 40 minutes later, an emcee who was at the last Cultural Elevation event but as part of a duo (Ti ‘n’ Phorce) presented us with a couple of solo tracks, the first of which was a nice poetic effort over a very sombre and ambiatic piece called State of Confusion. However the second track called Beat Tonic had no trouble bringing the energy levels back up to full. Tiberius is a name to look out for in the future. Two other emcees for whom people should keep their eyes and ears open were Ajay and Andam. These two tongue twisting lyricists premiered a track fresh from the studio and it was well received. They switched up the flow as they have a very rhythmic style of vocals with organically hypnotic production sounds, but when these two concrete emcees zone into their vocal performance there’s no holding them back. The stage was now set for a live cipher of epic proportions featuring the three aforementioned MCs and a young versatile vocalist called Trẽ. Three young and gifted musicians stepped up to provide an added dimension to the emcees, Tom Doherty producer and Bass wizard, Dave Rybka an electric guitarist in both senses of the term, and Matt McNicholas a drummers drummer. Pounding rhythms, mesmerizing melodies and bass lines that could start an earthquake along with the four emcees truly got the crowd amped, and to say the night kept getting better and better would be an understatement. Even Mpegwa had to come through with a more soulful vocal approach and the band had any riff or beat to suit any style. The final performance of the evening was Courtney, dancer and all round performer who smashed it with a very worthy solo venture. Nuff respect. One of the best factors about the whole evening was the fact that around 90% of the performers and those directly involved in the organisation of the whole evening are students from the campus who were doing it purely for the love and passion of providing entertainment for people to enjoy themselves and the added incentive that someone would benefit from this passion. Thank you Breakthrough for providing the platform, and a very big thanks to Mr Robert Croll, the orchestrater of the entire evening, safe blud. Watch out for the next one… coming soon. PEACE!!! For more info on Breakthrough Breast Cancer; http://www.breakthrough.org.uk Breakthrough Information Line Breakthrough has a free phone information line to provide information on breast cancer, Breakthrough activities and our research to our supporters. The number is 08080 100 200 (free phone) and will be open from 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday and from 9am to noon on Saturdays. - d-lo brown © ukhh.com 1999 - 2005