The public was invited to vote for their favourite upcoming artists and unknown acts by sending the name of their favourite artist to 17272. The voting line was closed on April 30 and winners were announced last week. The main intention of the voting line process was to contribute and empower other unknown and upcoming artists.
Since Tlatsa Lebala organisers announced the lineup that was voted for by the public, some voters and upcoming artists went on social media to express their distress over the results. Some people even felt one of the hottest hip-hop group Faded Gang should have been included. However, in an interview with Kast, he said most of the comments are driven by frustration. “We have initially indicated that the upcoming artists were meant to supplement the line up,” he said. Kast said the majority of the lineup could not be the unknown and upcoming artists. He said they are going to integrate established acts with upcoming artists to promote the latter. He indicated that they engaged VIB mobile service to process the voting process. “They sent us transcripts weekly and through this process we selected the top three artists with the highest votes. In the end he said they selected DJ Prince De Kok as the winner followed by Cooks and Koola respectively. HT and Franix were voted for as established acts. Kast said the winner was competing against 685 artists.
