In the “City of Champions” Colorado Springs, Colorado, competition can be a vibe! On Saturday, September 28th, 2024 at Uptown Bar &. Grill, the All Malez Verztality tournament of male hip hop & R&B artists was an innovative experience that we at 719 Mag were honored to be invited with me as one of the 3 judges for this battle of champions!
First off, 719 Mag has to shout out and give a big salute to one of our esteemed Gold Founding Sponsors - Phynal Call Ent along with our family at Syndicate Empire who has been supporting us since day 1 and has came through quite a few times in the clutch! The enthusiastic hosts Akema aka Lady Hu$tle and G’aod (the 1st Verztality champion) really showed up and showed out, for this wonderful tournament of artists!
So, let’s get right into it!
Having some experience myself presenting and hosting hip hop tournaments back in the late 2000’s (719 Hip Hop Olympics and others) I’ve had my fair share of knowing the competitive spirit of these type of events and how great they can be for the music scene, and the All Malez Verztality owes me absolutely nothing!
Artists scheduled to perform included:
G’aod (original champ)
TooTurnt Cashout (recent champ)
Haze
SleepyBadWays
Deep Silhouette
Slick Goreala
$nook B
Niqqo Da Vet
Truu Wordz
Fat Loc
Sir Heaviness
KO Kelly
Xhale
QUAYL
What I can appreciate is the family/brotherhood type vibes throughout the night, yet no doubt these hungry artists brought their A game, bars and even some diversity to the table for sure! One thing I can say is there are levels to these types of things naturally, however I saw an abundance of originality, whether it was my style or not. Either way, my approach (as an official judge and media outlet) was a commitment to remaining unbiased and nuetral, even if I had some prior dealings with any of the contestants.
This innovative one night event featured a total of 14 hip hop / r&b solo artists who had a total of 15 minutes to perform with no features making this event roughly 6-8 hours of fierce competition! Also a strict rule that was implemented is if any artist left the event early before the show was over, they would be DQ. Stakes were high as each performance was also judged on 6 categories: Versatility, Wordplay, Crowd Engagement, Vocal Ability, Stage Confidence, & Delivery. There was also a place to leave some feedback, which I found exceptional for any artist’s development and growth!
The night started out with some very impressive performances which honestly set the bar for all the acts that followed, proving to be a challenge indeed. Me, along with judges Count 9 of 9 Golden Radio/Syndicate Empire Radio, and Dominic Garcia the general of Syndicate Empire, had our work cut out for us deciding the scores in this thorough competition of live performances.
All in all, after a tough battle, with the highest overall score, the victor no doubt was KO Kelly of Anthem Music Enterprises (AME)! Congratulations for such an amazing act! KO Kelly has also achieved some recent accomplishements to include a possible Grammy submission along with a new album release “American Gangster”. Much more to come on that with a few upcoming articles being published with 719 Mag!as part of his grand prize!
Check out our attached #EventRecap video (top of article) of some of the highlights and exclusive footage of this tournament of champions, and stay tuned for KO Kelly and AME’s #LimelightReview to be released very soon!
Make sure to stay tuned for much more (and upcoming story) of our partners at Phynal Call Ent and some of their events at Uptown Bar & Grill (formerly Laura Belle’s) on the westside! Much more to come and thanks for having us be a part of the 2024 All Malez Verztality!
