Flanders' newest festival shows off hip-hop's rising stars
Fire Is Gold features up-and-coming artists from Belgium and abroad
Good things come in small packages
It’s an embrace that has been met with enthusiasm by local hip-hop fans, who have always had to travel abroad to attend a dedicated hip-hop only music bonanza. Until now, that is.
Because this month, Flanders will see its first-ever hip-hop festival being organised at Vilvoorde’s 3 Fonteinen domain. Fire Is Gold is remarkable not just for its exclusive focus on hip-hop, but also for the acts that won’t be coming to the festival.
The Vilvoorde fest notably won’t feature those currently considered the genre’s top artists – no Kendrick Lamars, no J Coles, no Chance the Rappers – nor any of their lesser rivals for that matter.
Whether for budgetary or more chauvinistic reasons, the Fire Is Gold programmers have instead chosen to spotlight mostly up-and-coming home-grown talent. With nods to both Flemish, UK and French-language rap, the programme has a bit of everything.
The young Sint-Niklaas rapper Woodie Smalls and Antwerp DJ Zoey Hasselbank will rep Flanders, while the electronic Amsterdam producer Jarreau Vandal will do the same for our northern neighbours. Wiley (pictured), perhaps the biggest name on the festival line-up, hails from the UK, as does the music genre he has been dubbed the godfather of – grime.
Fans of Francophone rap, meanwhile, can look forward to performances by the Brussels artists Damso, Roméo Elvis and Hamza. And though the names of these artists might not immediately ring a bell, trust, Fire Is Gold is the place to go if you want to catch a glimpse of this country’s next Stromae before they go platinum.
14 May, 3 Fonteinen Domain, Vilvoorde
