Hip-hop lives in Newtown

With music blaring through industrial-size speakers, graffiti artists on scaffolds painting the pillars of the M1 freeway bridge and b-boys busting a move, Newtown's Henry Nxumalo Street was transformed into a hip-hop haven in celebration of Freedom Day on Friday.

As the largest hip-hop festival on the continent, the sixth annual Back to the City festival raged for more than 11 hours.

"If you're not at Back to the City then you're not into hip-hop," said Vouks, a Cape Town internationally recognised b-boy (break dancer) who has been dancing for 14 years. "Joburg is seen as the New York City of Africa and for me this festival is what keeps hip-hop culture alive in South Africa."

The festival featured two stages - on one, close to 50 acts were scheduled to perform from noon to 10pm. Performers ranged from emcees to rappers to beatboxers.

At 7pm the crowd went wild when surprise guest Die Antwoord performed. The audience sang and danced enthusiastically throughout the short set, especially during the performance of the hit single, Enter the Ninja.

On the other stage, b-boys competed for a qualifying spot for the Red Bull BC 1 international b-boy competition in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The winner of the contest and the runner-up will go to Cape Town to compete to represent South Africa in the qualifiers later this year.

As artists performed and b-boys danced, skateboarders and BMX riders performed on a mini-skate park at the entrance to the festival. All along the walls, steak sandwiches, chips and samoosas were sold. Beer flowed in a perpetually packed beer garden.

The massive pillars of the M1 bridge were transformed from grey walls into colourful murals as 12 graffiti artists worked through the festival. One mural showed a boy donning sunglasses with his head literally in the clouds. Another artist painted an abstract rendition of nature with pointed and distorted tree branches blossoming with gold flowers.

As the sun set and the late arrivals began to fill up the street, it became almost impossible to move through the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd. Over the years, attendance has continued to grow. Nearly 11500 people attended last year's festival and organisers hoped to reach close to 14000 this year.

"Hip-hop has emerged as the biggest musical story of the new millennium. What began as a form of ghetto youth expression has now grown into a multimillion-dollar industry that has stretched to cities across Europe, Asia and, of course, Africa, with Johannesburg being no exception," the festival organisers said.