Sneak-Peaking the Play Griffin Session

Last year saw the rebranding of what was an ordinary energy drink that transformed its image into one that has become synonymous to South African street culture. Play Energy Drink launched its recent orange griffin logo last year through diverse marketing avenues and later established a group of veterans in South African urban street culture known as the Play Heroes.

The Play Heroes consist of ten characters that supposedly represent various sectors of South African street culture, consisting of DJ Kenzhero (A great in Hip-Hop DJ fraternity), Wandile and Wireless G (Team Thesis), Nick Kaoma (Co-Founder of Head Honcho wear), Andile Cele (founder of DOPE store and wear), DJ Akio (Founder of KOL and Collide-A-Scope records), Tshidiso Maduna and Girland Masola (Team 1808) and lastly Max Mogale (Photographer of note)

I attended the first day of the 2 day Play Griffin Session held at the Bus factory in Newtown and what I found most interesting about the event was the rather compromised attendance. The event was well commercially marketed and had 10 of the supposed street culture heroes marketing the event in their personal level. What concerns me is the fact that 10 of the supposed street heroes failed to at least lure ten thousand people to the event on that day (that’s 1000 people each) and these are meant to be our street culture heroes?!?!. I am not one to hate on fellow street cultured individuals however I feel that we should re-assess who our true street heroes are, is it the people we see on TV, Street culture veterans or the kids walking and living in the streets on a daily? Without sounding overly critical, let’s enjoy this Sneak-Peaking Play Griffin Session video clip.