Saturday June 24th, 2017 a concert took place. A Louisville, KY ministry Seed To Oaks presented the “Against The Odds” concert featuring Thi’sl. The event took place around 7pm and had a pretty decent crowd. There were a couple of local Louisville rappers who got to kick the concert off. Louisville battle rapper J. Coll was the first artist to touch the stage. He did two songs “They Don’t Know A Thang” and another song that I don’t remember the name. J. Coll wasn’t very long on stage. He didn’t try to preach in between songs and I appreciated that. Coll was very high energy and was a great way to start the concert. The concert transitioned to G1E artist T. Carter who also did two songs. Carter shared a little bit of his testimony and how the Lord delivered him. Carter ended his set by taking a picture with the entire crowd behind him which is always dope.
Next up to perform was Indy (Indianapolis) artist Davey Asaph. I was not very familiar with this artist, but I saw his name, face and album cover on Rapzilla all week long. Davey’s debut album “Never In My Wildest” dropped on June 13,th which charted on iTunes. I had looked at the flier all week and it didn’t click until the day before the concert that this was the Davey Asaph that was going to be performing. Davey had great energy and he probably knew that people weren’t familiar with him, so he took the time to explain his songs before he performed them. He did “Who Here,” “She Mine,” and “Ain’t We.” I instantly became a fan (be on the lookout for an interview) because Davey was dope! He involved the crowd in chanting his choruses, as did T. Carter and J. Coll. Davey jumped the crowd and rapped to the fans.
As excited as I was to see Thi’sl, truth be told, I was really excited to see Ty Brasel perform live. I’ve been a fan of Ty’s since ‘Cloud 9 Raps’ when it dropped in 2015, but I had never seen him perform. I was curious to see if he could perform, how his songs connected live, and whether Ty actually sounds the same live as he does on a record. Ty came out and started his set off with my one of my favorite songs, “4 Ppl Still Listening” and the crowd was really feeling him. Ty did some other songs from his album as well as some of the loose singles like “Ali,”which was fitting in the city of Louisville Ali’s home. Ty had some ratchet turn up songs and just kept his energy up the entire performance. Without further ado, the feature artist Thi’sl finally touched the stage. Thi’sl kicked off his set with an acapella verse from “King Without a Crown” and it just set the tone for the rest of his set. His St. Louis gravelly vocals cut through the crowd like a knife and it sounded just like the record. Thi’sl performed some of his old music like “Let It Knock” (this song dropped in 2011 but that mug still bangs!) and had one side of the crowd say a part of the hook and the other side said the other half of the hook. It turned into a contest and it was really engaging with the crowd. Other songs like “Hindsight” and “Go Get It” came off of Thi’sl’s latest project ‘Against The Odds.’ Thi’sl had a great mix of old and new music he put together from his extensive discography. He also did some speaking in between his songs and touched on things like judgement, overcoming hard times, with a clear and precise Gospel presentation. Thi’sl ended his set with the oldie but goodie “Snap Off,” which closed out the concert with a bang.
All of the artists were accessible after the concert and were open to taking pictures and chopping it up with the fans. Louisville artists Adalid and Kriss Liss (producer and singer/rapper with the single “Glowry”) were in attendance as well, as were many other local artists. It was a wonderful event that Seed to Oaks put on, and prayerfully we see many more like it! This is yet another concert that cemented an artist that I liked (Ty Brasel), and whose live performance made me want to check for more of their music. I love Jesus and I love dope hip hop concerts. It’s always a pleasure when the two collide in a meaningful way. This was the case with “Against The Odds.”
