LIVE: 2015 Broccoli City Festival

photo: Andrea Latney

On a windy cool day in DC, Broccoli City Festival was in full swing! This year's festival featured two stages; a main stage and the One Love Stage sponsored by One Love Massive which showcased up & coming local indie artists. Artists like PinkyKillaCorn , JudaRose and DC's sweetheart, Reesa Renee,  joined the cipher, they blessed the One Love Stage and slayed. Ironically, the cipher was opened with Bomani and he had a live band rocking right with him. The trumpets, drums, bass guitar and sax were vibing with the emcees and in comes JudaRose. His performance took the crowd back to Cypress Hill/Pharcyde with his own unique twist. This cat is nothing like Drake so don't expect it as the only thing they share are the same roots. JudaRose is definitely someone to look out for as one the next big names out there.
A notable performance on the main stage was Tiara Thomas. This young lady is the voice behind Wale on "Bad". On the main stage, she wowed the crowd and clearly has a following of her own in the area. Her tenacity, smooth voice and racy lyrics definitely had the crowd going when she did an ode to 420 lovers.
As patrons walked around the festival ground, Toyota had an amazing exhibit where they showed off hybrid cars and engaged festival goers in taking a survey, then randomly handing out anonymous envelopes filled with $10 in cash. Hey, wasn't a lot but I know that kind of subliminal care bear message will encourage me to look at Toyota for my next automobile purchase. They also had a picture booth where the festival goers could text the shots to their phone, take as many as they want and gain a t-shirt. Next to this booth, was a phone charging station that was fueled by bikes being pedaled - was definitely a neat and innovative concept highlighting how Going Green is not a fad, its a way of life.
Festival goers enjoyed tons of vendors highlighting some of the areas most notable urban wear designers like Kemet and Grindstone Universal who has over 10 years in the urban apparel industry. There was a huge bar marked as such that festival goers blessed mostly to stay warm on the windy cold field at St Elizabeth's and used as a meet and greet place to engage in convo organically. Muralists Mas Paz provided the dope murals with a stand out piece by @Superwaxx who created MC Murder, a brocooli caricature who slayed a clown and held his bloody head. Mas Paz is a muralists group that means "Peace by Art"= check out this art collective as they take over the world. Overall, if the weather had cooperated, festival goers would have had a trillion times more fun but the rain and winds stopped few from attending and even more from enjoying the kismetic energy shared by attendees of celebrating green living and enjoying the great artists that graced the stage like Marlee in the Mixx, Kali Uchi, Amir, Sony and Gabe, Willow and Jaden. Even their mother, Jada Pinkett Smith was there to support her children.
As the rain wreaked havoc on parts of the festival, the brave souls endured the downpour to catch the DJ stylings of Erykah Badu (under her alias DJ Low-Down Loretta Brown) with Thundercat.  Those who stuck around said it was worth the wait.
Kudos to the Broccoli City Festival for overcoming the odds of Mother Nature and a great turnout and despite the fact the festival is held on insane asylum grounds, I would highly recommend that people check it out next year and subtly recommend that we move it to a later date in May.
-Alexis Camoille