LOWELL — Beatboxing legend and hip-hop star Rahzel, a former member of The Roots, was among the most well-known performers to hit the stages at this year’s Lowell Folk Festival.
But at the festival, the people didn’t get a world-renowned rapper; they got a folk artist. When he probably should have been getting ready for his performance on the Dutton Street Stage, Rahzel was out back chatting with festival-goers.
With only five minutes to get on stage, he was still standing next to a sawhorse separating him from public and talked to festival-goers walking by.
One older woman approached him to say she never thought a hip-hop act would “resonate” with her but after she heard him, she thought he was amazing. Rahzel then talked to her all about his upbringing in New York City’s Queens borough in the 1970s.
“You see … the key is that you’re exposed to the music, it doesn’t matter the age. You’ve been exposed to it now and it’s not what you had thought it was,” said Rahzel to the woman. “The whole thing to me is being exposed to different music. At a young age I was exposed to a lot of these new genres and ran toward them.”
During his main performance late Sunday afternoon, he brought about 20 young kids from the dance floor up to the stage to have them dance on his command along with the beat, which also came from him. He made sure the audience knew that every beat they heard came from him and only him.
“The turntables don’t even work,” Rahzel said to the crowd. “The turntables don’t work!”
As someone who has recorded and performed with countless musicians around the world, Rahzel said his career has culminated into being able to play shows like the Folk Festival.
“Working with The Roots and recording with so many different musicians in so many different genres, it’s only natural for me to participate in the Folk Festival. It’s been an underlining of my career,” said Rahzel.
Also on the Dutton Street stage on Sunday was a large band from Cape Verde headed by singer Neuza De Pina, who now lives in Boston and has been touring roughly six years. Neuza and her band’s performance encompassed the rhythms and sounds that originated on the islands of Cape Verde.
“Even though it’s not being performed in a language the audience can all understand, I love how they can all easily participate,” said Neuza.
Neuza, who simply goes by her first name as an artist, said that the overall feel at the Lowell Folk Festival is so friendly that it stands out.
“I’ve had experience with lots of different festivals but this one I felt something special,” said Neuza in her Cape Verde tongue, smiling.”
Over at the crafts section along Lucy Larcom Park, many different artists were featuring a variety of talents.
One artisan, who works out of an old mill building in Pawtucket Rhode Island, is a second generation steel pan “turner” and has been making authentic steel drums with his father since he was a young boy growing up in the twin island Republic of Trinidad.
Having made steel drums all his life, Jason Roseman knows everything about the origins of the instrument and how it was first discovered.
“They realized by denting the pan in a slightly different spot, they could make a slightly different sound,” said Roseman. “It’s amazing. Absolutely amazing. I love doing it.”
Roseman is also a veteran steel drum performer and has been playing the instrument since he was 8 years old.
Blacksmith Carl Close, Jr., and his wife Susan were featuring the type of wrought iron artistry that they create out of Hammersmith Studios in Newton Upper Falls. Most notably they have done award-winning work on the Harvard Lampoon building in Cambridge.
Large groups were huddling around Close’s small “portable” forge, which brings air into a coal fire to create a high enough heat to melt metal.
In no time, Close was taking iron rods and melting them in the small coal fire and quickly forging nails that someone would have used to secure clapboards to the side of house over 200 years ago.
Having done this all of his life, Close said this was what he did for fun as a kid. In fact, he said that the forge he brought with him was his father’s original forge.
“My dad bought this forge back in 1950 at Sears Roebuck,” said Close looking down at it. “This was my Xbox.”