Ludacris and Sarkodie performing
American rapper, Ludacris left Accra begging for more when he thrilled fans at the Vodafone 020 Live concert on Saturday with a medley of hit songs, from a career spanning across ten years. With an energetic performance which saw the rapper interacting with the fans on several levels, the auditorium of The Dome reverberated with over one hour of back to back hits.
Screaming fans sung along to hit tunes such as Number One Spot, Act A Fool, Southern Hospitality, Area Codes, Yeah, Break Your Heart, Money Maker, Runway Love, Pimpin’ Over The World, Roll Out, Stand Up, All I Do Is Win, My Chick Bad, and Move B***h. Ludacris was pleasantly surprised when majority of the crowd sang along to all his songs. He exclaimed intermittently, “I see there are some real Luda fans in the house”.
Ludacris also introduced his Disturbing The Peace (DTP) crew member, Lil Fate who performed a few songs from his upcoming album. And although the songs were new to the Ghanaian crowd, they remained hyped about his performance and danced along to it. Ludacris’ personal disc jockey, DJ Infamous also provided some pulsating music in between performances to get the party going.
The Ludacris party had to come to an end perhaps sooner than his fans would have wanted, because he had to catch a flight to London the same night. However it wasn’t before he could stun the crowd one last time. Ghana’s BET Award-winning rapper Sarkodie joined Ludacris to perform their makeshift remix of ‘How Low can You go?’. The crowd went gaga when Sarkodie stepped in with his line, leaving Ludacris with smiles as he watched the crowd reaction and nodded his head along.
Ludacris exited after that performance paving the way for Sarkodie to close the show. Mixed with intermittent freestyles, Sarkodie treated patrons to hits including, ‘Saa Okodie’, ‘Life’, ‘When I Grow Up’, ‘Boga’, ‘Baby’, and ‘Give It To Me’. He was joined by Jayso on stage to perform ‘Pizza & Burger’, the first single off their joint collaboration album, ‘TMG’. After thanking patrons and Ghanaians for supporting him from his days on the Kasahari Levels through to winning the BET, Sarkodie capped the night with ‘You Go Kill Me’.
The third edition of the annual Vodafone 020 Live Concert was opened by a spirited performance from the winners of the 2012 Vodafone Icons reality TV contest, Black N Peach. The trio opened with a well-choreographed performance of Osibisa’s ‘Osa Osa O’ and followed it with Wutah’s ‘Kotosa’. They sealed it off with a performance of Tina Turner’s ‘Simply The Best’, which was a crowd favourite from the Vodafone Icons series.
Nigerian rapper, Naeto C followed Black N Peach. He dished out popular tunes including, ‘I Gentle O’, ‘Lagos Party Remix’, ‘Sample’, ‘Kini Big Deal’ and ‘5&6’. He also introduced on stage a 10-year-old rap discovery, Swag Gee. The young rapper, who turns 11 in November, got the almost packed Dome cheering with his impressive punch lines. Naeto C capped his impressive performance with his smash hit ‘10 Over 10’, which got the crowd singing and dancing along.
Another highlight of the well produced concert was hiplife trio, 4×4’s performance with a live band. Accompanied by Kwame Yeboah and the Ohia Bey3 Ya band, the group put up an impressive show which brought their numerous hit songs alive in a whole new dimension. They performed songs like ‘Fresh One’, ‘Waist and Power’, ‘Mokoni’, ‘World Trade Centre’, ‘Hot Girl Dot Com’, and ‘Miss Doctor’ and were well received by the crowd which danced along. They further stunned the crowd with the performance of their new gospel song, ‘Hallelujah’.
The concert was hosted by broadcasters, Eddy Blay Jnr and Caroline Sampson, who both couldn’t hide their hiphip influences, as they battled each other with some exciting punch lines during the concert. The Vodafone 020 Live concert returns next year and fans are already guessing and making demands about who should headline it. Stay tuned!
