K-OS - Valhalla (feat. Sam Roberts & Kevin Drew)

This past weekend Holland Park in Surrey hosted its annual Fusion Festival. The free festival is a two day event that promotes diversity of race, culture, and ethnicity. The centre of the park consists of over 30 cultural pavilions from various nations such as Kenya, Bolivia, and Greece. Each pavilion has members from their country providing information, selling goods, and, most importantly, cooking fine cuisine. Then in the surrounding area there are 3 music stages, a cultural community stage, and a cooking stage. I went for a friend's birthday on the Saturday which was also the same day that musical acts Los Furios, The Zolas, Kyprios, and K-OS performed.

We arrived to hear the final few songs by Vancouver-based ska band Los Furios. They were very high energy and had a brilliant horn section. As it was my first time at this festival it was somewhat overwhelming when I began looking for food to eat. I made two rules for myself that were to only try food that is very foreign to me (ie. from Kenya and not Greece) and that I would try my darndest to eat from all 6 represented continents. After buying $20 worth of tickets I followed a festival vet into the throng of people enjoying the sun, music, and great eats. Stop one was at Kenya where I had a great samosa that rivaled even the best Indian ones I've had. Then I visited Russia for these delicious dumpling things called Babouschka or something. I then stumbled upon the Bolivia tent which, for some reason, was the only country that didn't have a giant sign in front of it. There I enjoyed an excellent pulled pork sandwich that had an amazing, spicy sauce and salsa on it and a mango flavoured lime fizzy drink. So far so good as I had eaten something from Africa, Europe, and South America. After meeting up with the rest of our crew we decided to head back to the main stage as The Zolas were set to come on.

The Zolas are a Vancouver indie-rock band that have been getting bigger and bigger with tons of shows all across the lower mainland. The band was loving the weather and good vibes of the festival as they tore through hits like "Knot In My Heart" and "You're Too Cool". Fusion Fest is a dry event so near the end of The Zolas' set we decided that birthday shots were in order and headed down the street to Central City Brewing Co. 

Several shots/beers/etc later I was back at the fest for round two of my world food tour. I began at the Afghanistan tent where I had a tortilla thing folded in half with potatoes, onions, and other spices inside it. On its own this meal was meh but when dipped in the provided green hot sauce and sour cream it was delicious. At this point Kyprios had taken the stage and after a couple of his own songs he began playing killer covers of classic rap songs from Dr. Dre to Jay-Z. Kyprios was very high energy and the saxophone player in his band just crushed it on a few tracks. It was great music to groove along to while enjoying dinner. I then hit up Fiji to try some spicy peanuts and peas which were great but mostly made me want another beer. My final stop of the night was at the Australian Pavilion where I had to try the Kangaroo sliders. The meat is quite tough but very tasty, especially when dipped in the fresh blueberry sauce. So I was able to cover Asia and Oceania but never made it to North America (not too bad though as this is the least foreign food to me). At this point it was time to head back to our spot at the main stage for the headliner K-OS.

K-OS is a rapper born in Trinidad and raised in Toronto who has been a solid fixture in the Canadian Hip-Hop scene for the past decade. I've always liked his music but had never seen him live so this festival was the perfect time. He started out great, performing lesser known songs as well as new material. Then things really got going when he played the hit "I Wish I Knew Natalie Portman", a song based off of the piano beat to the theme song "California" for the TV show The O.C. K-OS is a great rapper but he is also quite a good singer and rocker. He displayed this by pulling out a guitar for the next few songs and at one point exclaimed "Let's see your favourite rapper do that!" A few songs later K-OS reached his performing peak with a sick version of "Valhalla", today's song. The track has a killer guitar riff, provided on the album version by Kevin Drew of the Canadian indie-rock supergroup Broken Social Scene and a catchy, epic chorus sung by Sam Roberts, another great Canadian rock star. K-OS's touring guitarist nailed the riff and the entire band joined K-OS to sing the chorus, along with the crowd. K-OS seemed to be really digging this song as his rapping was spot on and the crowd was really into it. 

Unfortunately a couple songs later he said "I'm looking at the setlist and these ones on here I know I gotta do but I don't want to". He was referring to his three hits "Sunday Morning", "Man I Used To Be", and "Crabbuckit" and was basically telling the crowd that he was mad that he had to play these great songs that people love. He even cut Sunday Morning short initially before going back and playing the whole thing. Personally I think that this is super fucking lame. Like, poor you, you've recorded some amazing songs that people love and have to perform them a lot. Wah-fucking-wah! I understand that an artist can get tired of doing the same song over and over again but why not just change it up by making a slowed down reggae version or something? He gave a very half-assed performance for these final three and just seemed eager to get off the stage. The only highlight was this little kid in the crowd right next to me. A guy with a video camera was filming him while another dude held up a light and the kid did some crazy breakdancing. At this point most of the crowd had turned their attention to him and were loving it. After he shyed away an even younger kid, a baby, began doing his own version of break dancing which was adorable and awesome. 

Overall I really enjoyed the Fusion Festival and will be sure to try to go every year from here on out. I highly recommend it for anyone who loves food, music and good times.