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Cape Town - The party-starting beverage, Jägermeister, began a head to head gqom battle between the quirky Zakes Bantwini and deep House maestro DJ Bongz at The African Beer Emporium in Pretoria on Friday.
With Somizi as a referee, the prospect of this dance battle sounded tremendously exciting. Unfortunately, there were a few errors in the execution.
First, it seemed as if there was a limited supply of Jägermeister, which makes very little sense especially when it became obvious that the festivities were not going to start on time.
Second, the venue was not as full as one would expect at a gqom dance battle.
Third, the glaring concern about the shindig was when exactly Zakes and Bongz became gqom artists?
Fourth, there were no dance crews as one usually sees at a gqom act.
Honestly, very little gqom was played during the face-off.
To add salt to wound, Somizi pulled out ... just like that. He could probably tell this event was not going to be much of an extravaganza.
He was quickly replaced by funnyman Tol A$$ Mo who was entertaining but even he couldn’t save this long night.
But the small crowd made the most of it with very little intricate DJ sets or refreshing mixes.
As for a battle, DJ Bongz played a House set as a warm-up. Bantwini responded with a medley of his popular songs, house songs and a few of his James Brown moves.
It was hardly fair as Bongz was stuck firmly behind the decks while Bantwini’s talents showed behind a microphone and his DJ-ing abilities.
Bantwini had a Michael Jackson Billie Jean moment, which was the only highlight of the event, getting him the winner’s crown.
Moonchild Sanelly rocked up sporting her famous blue hairdo. Maybe she should have called DJ Maphorisa to rock things up.
This concept could be really cool if a bit more thought is put into it.
