‘Ottawa’ Hip-hop Fills the Bill at CityFolk
Bryson Tiller, Joey Bada$$ and Kweku Collins, three rising stars of the hiphop world, took over the main stage at CityFolk on Friday, a booking that may have alienated the folkies but sure made a lot of young music fans happy.
The diverse crowd, made up of teens and early twentysomethings, expanded from just a few hundred for Collins’ opening set to thousands, mostly female, by the time Tiller hit the stage. Clearly, he’s a big hit with the streaming generation, routinely racking up millions of online plays and YouTube views.
The 23-year-old Kentucky native took a moment near the beginning to explain how it all went down, and thanked fans for their support. “All my real fans know I’m a father first,” he said. “I always wanted to put my daughter in private school and because of y’all, I finally get to do that.”