Interview with Uppercut

SoldierMuse had a chance to chat to Alvhin Adendorff, who is a part of the Cape Town based Uppercut crew. One of their trademarks is the use of impactful illustration, often with a post-apocalypse theme to it. We spoke about their collaboration with local illustrators.

SoldierMuse:
Yo Alvhin, thanks for taking your time to have this chat with me. Could you briefly describe what Uppercut is?

Alvhin:
Uppercut is a musical platform and collective. We host a weekly event every Friday night at the Waiting Room on Long Street in Cape Town, and a radio show every 2 weeks on Assembly radio. Our focus is mainly on Hip-hop, Future Beats, Bass, Breaks, Funk, Soul, and Dub with each style having its own visual representation on the flyers.

SoldierMuse:
When did you first make use of illustrations for promoting your DJ’s and events?

Alvhin:
We first made use of comic illustrations around 2012. We wanted illustrations of all our DJs to help promote our events. Luis Tolosana of Falcon Comics is a close friend and a big hip hop fan so we got him involved. Working with Falcon Comics we produced a number of DJ illustrations, including Boogie Blind (USA) and Ali B (UK), as well as a larger piece for our birthday celebration.

SoldierMuse:
I have noticed that you have made use of multiple illustrators over time?

Alvhin:
Yes, as our events got bigger we began to make use of illustrations for our flyers. Luis pointed us in the direction of Andre Human and Darren Christian.

SoldierMuse:
Can you tell me about the illustrators and the various Uppercut nights – I know you have a dupstep, producer and funk event besides the Golden Era Hip-Hop.

Alvhin:
Andre works on our Button Bashers events. The initial posters follow the story of a battle between a school bully and a kid, with elements of video games included to show the competitive side of the battle, and also as a play on the name of the event. They also gave visual expression to the coming together of the Uppercut and Button Basher’s crews. Button Bashers has a quite muted colour palette, while Uppercut’s main colour is a bold red. The illustrations meld the two in the same way as our crews joined together. The Button Basher’s storyline is not used anymore. Instead, we produce an illustration of the previous week’s winner to use for the next flyer. It’s a way for us to increase the desire for producers to want to win, and it’s also a nice way to give them some extra publicity.

SoldierMuse:
So you pay special tribute to some DJ’s and events with the illustrations? (Luis Tolosana did the original SoldierMuse illustration so I know how incredible it is to have a comic character made of yourself.)

Alvhin:
Andre also works on Dubbhism and 3 Must Get Funked. For Dubbhism the two first illustrations just happened to represent two of the four elements of earth, air, fire, water. So when we noticed that we decided to complete the idea and did two more illustrations. The current artistic direction is focused on the idea of the darker deeper side of dub. For the last event we had an illustration done for our international guest and as a tribute to Blotchy, the Dark Room Crew resident, who was playing his final Dubbhism set before heading to the UK.

SoldierMuse:
How does the 3 Must get Funked differ from the other parties and illustrations?

Alvhin:
For the 3 Must Get Funked event there is a lot more creative freedom. We have a brighter colour palette, but other than that Andre pretty much runs with whatever idea he has which ties into the funk/soul aesthetic. The work really is special and is a great lesson in having trust in artists and giving them room to express themselves.

SoldierMuse:
Tell me a bit about the newest event in your artillery, the Now Era night?

Alvhin:
Darren Christian works on Now Era events. We first used him at a Future Thug party where he produced illustrations with a near future, cyberpunk type feel. His current work is of portraits of current hip hop artists. We made this choice to make the connection between the Now Era and Golden Era events. The Golden Era flyers make use of an iconic image of a hip hop legend. By using portrait illustrations for Now Era, we hint at the fact that the guys we put on our flyers will be the future icons of hip hop, and that we will look at them in the same way that we look at the golden era legends.