As homecoming weekend arrived at UNC, one band was focused on delivering the ultimate reunion show.
Sankofa, a hip-hop band founded in 1997 by UNC students, reunited for the first time in 20 years for a homecoming show last Friday night at Cat's Cradle.
The band, which broke up in the early 2000s, opened for legendary hip-hop duo Outkast and toured with The Roots. Their name Sankofa comes from an African proverb that means to learn from your past while also looking forward into the future, Music Director Matt Brandau said.
“There's a bird called the Sankofa bird that flies forward and looks backward. And that was our logo,” Brandau said. “So yeah, it's just about being in the moment, enjoying every day, every second as it's happening.”
Cat’s Cradle was home to many iconic hip-hop artists of the 1990s such as Public Enemy, the Wu-Tang Clan, Arrested Development, and Sankofa themselves. It was crucial for Sankofa to return back to where it began in Cat’s Cradle, Stefan Greenlee, a founding member, said.
“Coming up in the mid-to-late '90s, Chapel Hill was a mecca of independent music. It was all coming out of the Cat's Cradle. This was like North Carolina's Motown for independent music,” he said.
To open the show, the student group UNC Cypher, introduced by host Josephus Thompson, performed a group freestyle, trading the mic between verses. Their performance was interactive, encouraging various members in the crowd to give a random word to incorporate in their freestyle.
The selection of opening acts were expansive in their styles, from the more lyricist style of artists like Tay Novel and Celinski, to more rock-inspired songs performed by Omatade. Other artists included Mr Rozzi, Trinidad Rel and Ed Blank.
Another opening act, Jasme Kelly performed some '90s hits as well as an original song produced by a member of the Sankofa band. Kelly, a class of 1995 UNC alumna, hoped that Friday’s show could act as a catalyst for more homecoming concerts at Chapel Hill in the future.
