Why Zamanand matters
This year was my first time participating at the Zamanand Festival as part of the lineup for Freeze & Flow.
The ask was simple: come, rap for 15 minutes, enjoy the vibes... and if anyone wants to get more involved, any help is appreciated.
All in all I ended up staying there for around 10 hours over the course of two days, and I've never felt more lucky to be a part of this community.
Before I say any more, I want to give a massive shoutout to Jireh for his role as an organiser - over the course of being at the festival and meeting up for an earlier photoshoot, I got some insight into how his mind works.
I think our scene is really lucky to have him and there'll be many more exciting events coming from his camp.
Photocredit: @milohaaf_fotographie
Setting up the tent, taking down the tent, selling Ice Cream, filling in with freestyle sessions to pull crowd for the next artist... I kept busy and I wouldn't want it any other way.
The drive to be useful is something ingrained deep, deep in my soul. At Zamanand, I got to scratch that itch in a big way.
We live in busy, hectic times, where cost-benefit often dictates doing the bare minimum.
Zamanand showed me that when you push just a little further, you start to feel like a team.
In the lulls in the action, I also got the chance to talk to a lot of musicians, sparking conversations which got me invested enough in their characters to conduct a couple of interviews (mostly in German, but browser translators are pretty good these days).
Photocredit: @milohaaf_fotographie
Photocredit: @a_takinu_vision
Photocredit: @milohaaf_fotographie
Photocredit: @milohaaf_fotographie
About 50 meters down the road from us was the Indie Munich living Room Stage.
Now, I've been an advocate for the Hip-Hop Community getting involved with them (and vice versa) so I was bouncing back and forth between stages trying to support as many of my friends as possible.
(Yes of course I interviewed them as well).
There's clearly still room for this to grow and be refined vis-a-vis scheduling and Orga -
Ryan suggested staggering our performances with the main stage acts to ensure artists had more of a crowd.
My own set ended up being no big deal - but for a small artist at a huge event like this, who ends up showing up to your set is the combination of lots of factors, many of them out of your control.
The true measure of myself as an artist that weekend was everything else - the freestyling, the support, the way I try to pay attention to every performance I watch, and the people I got to know. This was a huge step forward for the scene.
I'm looking forward to the next Zamanand, and hope to see you all there!
