So this post comes really late from the time it actually happened. This was one of the events I did in the midst of me studying. This was all the way back in July but regardless, I remember having a good time.
It had been a long time since I had been to any kind of local hip hop/open mic event. I mean years. The places aren’t even around anymore thats how long its been. My boy Mike hit me up early in the morning while I was running at the lake and said that his friend was performing that night at Pure Lounge, and his normal photographer wasn’t going to be able to make it and if I would like to shoot for him? Hell yea, why not! I was pretty excited the rest of the day. I met up at Mikes and we went on our way to DC, stopping to get some grub along the way.
After driving in a few circles and finding a garage to park in, we had finally arrived. Pure Lounge is a pretty nice place despite being a little on the small side. The bar is very nice looking. When we walked in, the open mic night had already started and someone was up there trying to get the crowd moving. There was a pretty big crowd there and as the night went on, I noticed that most of the crowd were friends and family of the performers. Some of these guys up there were really good….and some better than others. It was actually pretty refreshing to hear up and coming artists perform and freestyle. I remember thinking that I wanted to come back again another time when I didn’t have routing protocols and port numbers running thru my head!
We walked over to where Kami was at the bar, where he was with a few other friends and Mike introduced me. He had on a ‘RUN-DMC’ shirt and was soft when he spoke but firm. He was clearly excited and awaiting his turn. I started taking a few pictures here and there to get my settings dialed in and unfortunately, not a lot of them came out well so I omitted them from this post. There was suppose to be a certain time schedule for everyone to go up there but, someone had dropped the ball and Kami had to go on much later than expected. But he waited patiently despite seeing what seemed like others ‘cutting’ in front of him.
The time finally came when Kami took the mic and started his set. All I can say is that he did the damn thing! The anticipation of having to wait to get up there and seeing other guys go up before him didn’t faze his set at all. For some of the set, I actually put the camera down a bit and just listened to him. You can hear the passion and the drive thats behind the lyrics. Thats the kind of hip hop I like. True to the art. Enjoy the pictures! I hope to be able to work with Kami again soon!
Check out more on Kami Dash Kaze on the links below!
http://www.reverbnation.com/kamidashkazi
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kami-Dash-Kazi/330800654941?ref=profile
tweakedcity.com 