Image from Facebook. Courtesy of Beth Cuenco.

Wise Words Festival – A Sonnet to our Sensibilities

Unified’s Francis Olaku went down to the Wise Words Festival in Canterbury to see what all the noise and music and poetry was about. 

The first weekend of the Wise Word Festival was perfect. The weather was beautiful. With an amalgamation of food and drinks to choose from, the atmosphere was electric.

As I was about to buy the tickets for a few acts, a preposition was given to me. I was told that instead of buying the two separate tickets for the events, I should get a day pass which would enable me to watch every performance they showcased that day. I thought very hard about this, and chose to get the day pass. It was a decision that I did not come to regret later.

Later I enjoyed a secret set-which ended up not being so secret after all. Because of the obvious underlying message, my favourite song in this set was called Suppression starts at school. The majority of the child/parent audience missed the message of the song completely, and just hand-clapped away at the catchy rhythm.

Image from Facebook. Courtesy of Beth Cuenco.

Following on from that, I watched Coco and the Butterfields perform. They set the bar at best performance of the day, and I wondered how and if anybody was going to top it. With intense banjo playing, coupled with banter from the witty bass player, a very phenomenal vocalist, and much more; Coco and the Butterfields had us on our feet from start to finish.

Debris Stevenson’s blend of poetry, grime and dancing was intoxicating. Her personal life story infused with her performance and brought a richness. I’ve never seen someone perform in that way before. It was such a visceral experience.

Tongue Fu’s performance, with its improvisation and erotic odes to cheese made the evening more light-hearted. It was also the return of Debris as a performer, and my introduction to Dizraeli. Debris brought back her intensity from her previous performance, and Dizraeli was something that words cannot even express. He had a fire in his belly, and the further we got into his performance the stronger these flames of lyrical ecstasy became.

From the advanced turn tabling to his dangerous flows, Dizraeli quite possibly took the league for the best performance at Wise Words, with Debris at a very close second.

Then Debris and AG (her DJ for the night) hosted a secret set of bangers. We all danced the night away to the all the grime tracks played, but sadly it had to end.

All in all, the Wise Words Festival was amazing. I’ll be coming back next year.

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