SEASON 1

While we are still building what Coolaid Jam of which evolved into Cxxlaid will look like, the launch of the platform has really prioritized a spirit of experimenting. Produced by Skynation, the platform grew through its reinvestment of ticket revenue; while placing a focus on launching the platform at a level where it was capable of presenting some of the next emerging names in mainstream Hip Hop. Cxxlaid Season’s one curation worked to find some of the best with a healthy budget to be able to negotiate and curate with. From Kodie Shane to 6lack, the curation journey of finding some of Cxxlaid’s headliners have seen some highs in terms of rising talents, and some lows in terms of unpacked venues.

From a presentation that started with all all male lineup featuring the emergence of Korean Rap of Junny Kim captured live through a paint brush by Jace Kim at Fortune Sound Club, show one created history as Devontee made a name for himself in Vancouver and Canada. Within this Season and as part of the platforms curation responses, we saw defiance within the industry and saw a counterculture of hiphop talents in other subcultures as artists like Nostalgix, Rude Nala, and Missy D brought a wave of female craftsmanship that would eventually spill into show 5 of Season 1. While artists like Ninetyfour, Dkay, Zac Fluids, and Scody Jonez build their audience and reach, for the first time, platforms like Rapidfire would grow within their subfocus on lyricism as an important part of the industry. Seeing an artist like MamaRudeGyal MTHC come out as a lyricst to headline Cxxlaid, without having the strongest visuals means the standards of getting curated for a cxxlaid stage requires more than us digital publishing views.

When we launched, our goal was getting featured on Hiphop Canada, at most we believed if we accomplished that, it would be a good guage if there was traction or interest in people wanted this type of showcase. Accomplishing that goal and breaking that goal into getting featured on ETCanada, Dailyhive, and more. While Cxxlaid is privately funded as a commercial platform, the community impact and novelty of our production has started seeing non for profits, organizers and various organizations start to support the growth of Cxxlaid. From Communities Vancouver, to Rising Youth Community Fund, Cxxlaid as a platform has slowly starting to become able to develop funding injections outside of ticket sales, which is giving the organizers the opportunity to become a lot more successful.  From Toronto, New York, to Europe, messages are coming in on Facebook of artists who want to get featured on the platform. As our platform loves working with emerging labels, the success of year one has started introducing us to imprints wanting to give their acts more infrastructure. As MamaRudeGyal, an Indeginous Female Rapper will headline show 5, so will show 6  change the tone of the showcase with Jace Kim closing off the Season.  Everything is growing, the demand for us to plan ahead, secure volunteers to help with the event presentation, the requests to help with the curation process of Cvlture fest twice in a row as part of the presentation statges of Harambecouver Multicultural Carnival, having our show 2 headliner, close the stage at #CVLTUREFEST! This year has really had a number of successes. As this production is still in it’s nascent stages, our goal is that Season 1 can really set a standard to which we can really evolve this platform, it’s connections, networks and exposure capabilities for the artists and Canadian community.