Leonie Hayden: A plea to Soulfest - prove the haters wrong

Mos Def.

Opinion

Urban festivals have a dodgy history in New Zealand, but the Herald's new music blogger Leonie Hayden hopes Soulfest delivers.

I'm taking bets on which month a headlining act will drop out of the recently announced Soulfest, and whether or not the whole shebang will be cancelled outright.

Cynical? Moi?

You don't have to have been on the wrong end of a bunch of bad debtors - as I have - to know that music promoters bringing urban acts to New Zealand have a habit of dropping the ball. It's become so Ludacris-ly (Boom Tunz tour, 2010) predictable.

Soulfest promises D'Angelo, Common, Mos Def, Maxwell, Anthony Hamilton, Angie Stone and Musiq Soulchild, all live at Western Springs Stadium on October 26 and it's a line-up too good to lose. The idea of having that dangled in front of our noses and then snatched away fills me with pre-emptive Hulk-rage.

So let's examine the evidence. Recently cancelled hip-hop and R&B acts include Omarion, Marques Houston and Avant in 2008, Kelly Rowland, T-Pain, Ludacris, Third World and David Banner in 2010; Bell Biv De Voe, Ginuwine and Quit The City festival with Chali 2Na in 2012; and The Movement with 2 Chainz, Joey Bada$$, Iggy Azalea (replaced by Angel Haze before cancelling), Chiddy Bang and Akon in 2013.

What the actual eff, guys? What are you getting so wrong and how can we help?

On the pros list, Soulfest co-promoter Ginnen Group successfully toured Brian McKnight with Tevin Campbell here (although I can't actually find a single account online from a human who attended a show). Salt-N-Pepa played to a good crowd in Auckland last year, and Boyz II Men the year before that. They're also limiting the capacity of the venue, so it's not like they're trying to sell 50,000 tickets. But ... well, there's still a big "but" hanging in the air. I don't like big "buts" and I cannot lie.

On a side note, it's with some trepidation I anticipate the (female) audience's reaction to seeing D'Angelo perform tracks like Untitled (How Does It Feel) and Feel Like Makin' Love. Not to objectify the guy, but much of his musical appeal seemed to be based on, you know ... umm ... abs (don't act like I'm the shallow one, you know I speak the truth). His abs had abs. His voice had abs! All I'm saying is don't expect Brown Sugar the Caramel God of Cheekbones to appear on stage, because recent Google searches suggest that man is long gone. Let the voice speak for itself.

I also welcome the Soulfest organisers' promise of "soul food". If you know what's good for you, give me all of your fried chicken and waffles and back away slowly.

If the show is dumped I'm gonna be just as sore about losing that tantalising prospect as I will be about not seeing Cruisin' played live. Long before GOOP and Huey Lewis butchered the Smokey Robinson hit for a film about sad karaoke addicts, D'Angelo made it a declaration of intent to love a woman down 'til she loses her damn mind.

It was good, and I need it in my life. Don't let us down, Soulfest. Prove the haters wrong.

* Leonie Hayden is nzherald.co.nz's new music blogger; she'll be filing columns twice a week.