Ahzia

With a rhythmic flow and clever bars over a wide variation of beats, Ahzia Hester kicked off the night with a hip-hop solo act. The Davenport local has been making music and writing rap songs for around three and a half years, starting in his senior year in high school.

“A lot of the time, I think what I found is I start with instrumentals, and then that kind of sets the tone,” he said. “So, it’s like, what does this instrumentation make me feel? And then I kind of facilitate the idea to that beat and complement it.”

Hester said that his lyrics reflect life as a young 20-something.

“Life … whatever that entails, you know, love, dreams, triumphs, failures, just the whole nine, you know,” he said. “I try to do it in a way that, you know, I guess there’s really no topic that hasn’t been touched on, you just have to do your own way of it. Bring your touch to it.”

Today marks the one-year anniversary of Hester’s last project, and now, he said, his focus is on connecting to his demographic.

“I think this is why a show like this is a great opportunity,” he said. “Because it’s the UI, there’s just a huge number of people present in that area that obviously just want to connect to art, and that’s really been the primary focus is just connecting the people with the content and hopefully just letting that lead to other opportunities.”