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- Back To The City (BTTC) is South Africa’s biggest hip-hop festival.
- BTTC was established in 2007.
- Alfonso Nqunjana attended the event and filed this gallery.
- For more lifestyle news, go to the News24 Life front page.
South Africa's biggest hip-hop festival, Back To The City (BTTC), returned with massive energy and a spectacular fan turnout to celebrate 50 years of hip-hop.
The event held at Mary Fitzgerald Square in Johannesburg built a special highly decorated stage which featured acts like kwaito artists Trompies, Zola-7, and Shuga Smaxx.
Each year, BTTC boasts an international act that fans wouldn't be able to see at other mainstream events and Mobb Deep's Havoc and Beatnuts were this year's international headliners.
To pull off the festival, BTTC partnered with brands like Converse, Hennesey and Butan, to name a few.
Their presence was felt on the ground as people came out in their stylish Converse and Butan outfits while graffiti artists honoured the hip-hop tradition of "tagging" walls.
One artist even created a special painting for the late Riky Rick.Local artists such as Sjava, Big Zulu and Nadia Nakia surprised hip-hop lovers at the event with freestyles at the Mary Fitzgerald Square which housed several other stages, for dancers, freestylers, skaters and a basketball court for basketball-heads (*a common way to refer to people who are big fans of something in the hip-hop world).
Headline sponsor Hennessy said it allowed fans to write something special for their favourite artists in an interactive "letter to hip-hop" feature.
"The Hennessy Boombox Viewing Deck offered festival goers the opportunity to enjoy Hennessy cocktails with the best view of the stage.
"Inside the Boombox, the Interactive 'Letter to Hip-Hop' offered participants a chance to write their personal messages to hip-hop for inclusion in the South African Hip-Hop Museum."
Performances by A-Reece, Nadia Nakia and Kwesta closed off the evening with Kwesta, the festival's final act acknowledging how special it was for him to close Africa's largest hip-hop celebration.
Several of the acts booked to perform on the main stage paid a special tribute to the late Kiernan Forbes (AKA) whose 2022 BTTC performance made waves and the acknowledgement of his life and legacy left festivalgoers emotional.
Take a look at some of the moment from the 2023 Back To The City hip-hop festival:
