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OMG, I found my new favourite person. Where has Shad K been all my life? I mean, I knew that his video for “The Old Prince Still Lives At Home” is amazing, but why the eff was I slacking on hearing more? Talk about a smack in the face like, “get on your music game, wendy.” Fine. I learned my lesson with my favourite set of the weekend – no lies. No wonder he’s been shortlisted for the Polaris prize.

Shad is immediately likeable. He drops goofy pop culture references and throws out impromptu freestyles just for kicks. He dons a guitar to slow things down a bit (“do you guys like love songs?” he asks before launching into his version of The Fugees’ “Nappy Heads”) and then grabs his mic to swagger around the stage. When you hear his beats, there’s no way you can’t nod your head. Shad’s got a sick beat fever, and the only cure is more bounce.

I love when an artist can really capture the soul of old school hip hop, and Shad gets it totally right. Plus, I gotta say that he had the most hype crowd I saw at Vfest – and he was on a side stage. I thought the Foo Fighters crowd would have been insane but this audience put them to shame, and gave me a little more faith in Toronto fans. Seriously, all weekend I was like, “where is the energy?”.. well, I found it.

In conclusion, I loved Shad’s set. If by some chance I’m not actually the last person to jump on this train (and you are), check out his MySpace to hear some tunes, including some of the tracks he performed, like “Compromise”, “I Don’t Like To”, “Rock To It”, and of course “The Old Prince Still Lives At Home”.

(Photos by Wendy)

Posted on Sunday, September 7th, 2008 at 8:01 pm by Wendy and is filed under VFest2008.

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