SXSW 2018 is officially in the books and it was another great experience. It was my 6th year attending and you never know what to expect. This year, I got to discover some new artists, see legends perform for the first time and watchsome of my current favorites perform all across the city of Austin. Below I have listed the top 5 performances I saw during the music portion of the fest.
Bun B
2003-2004 was a great year for Houston and their Hip Hop scene. They were at the top of the game and I was following the scene from a thousand miles away here in Chicago. There were tons of acts that were buzzing around that time but UGK (Pimp C and Bun B) were the anchors of the movement. Fast forward 14 years and I finally got to see Bun B perform some of his hits in an intimate setting at Highland Lounge in Austin.
A. Chal
A.Chal is by far one of my favorite artists of the past few years and not only did I get to see him perform at the Sony event, but we also got to sit down and talk to him for a bit before the show. He is such a chill dude and he is an even better performer who will certainly keep growing his fan base as he embarks on a new journey with his new label, Epic Records.
Khalid
Grammy-nominated artist Khalid was one of the artists that I have had the opportunity to see perform a few times in the past but for whatever reason, I wasn’t able to able to make any of those shows. I was determined to change that this year when I found out he was headlining the Sony show at SXSW. He kicked off his show with a superb performance of “American Teen” and went on to put on a killer headlining set.
Buddy
The seeing Buddy perform situation is somewhat similar to the Khalid one except that I missed opportunities at the actual SXSW fest this year to see him perform up until Friday night. Late Friday night, Buddy hit the Empire Garage stage to perform to packed crowd and lit it up. The highlights of his performance were “Shine” and his recently released track, “Black.”
DUCKWRTH
DUCKWRTH is the only artist on this list that I actually discovered at the fest. I listen to tons of music every week and I have to admit that I have never come across any of DUCKWRTH’s work. I am really glad I stumbled into his set at the Twitter showcase and then later got to see his entire performance at the SXSW Takeover event. This guy has such a great live show and I’m really excited to dive into his catalog. I strongly recommend everyone to catch a DUCKWRTH show if he is ever in a city near you.
Photo Credit: Alberto Marquez / Pursuit of Dopeness
