(Last Updated on January 2, 2013 by Editor)
HARARE – It’s official. The Raving King of dancehall Popcaan thrilled revellers with a scintillating performance at the Harare International Conference Centre (HICC) just after midnight yesterday.
The Jamaican ushered his Zimbabwean fans into 2013 with most of his hits leaving the crowd spellbound.
Popcaan came onto the stage a little after 12 midnight and every song he performed ignited frenzy among the crowd and he managed to maintain it throughout his entire act.
The song that had the crowd jumping was his opening song System on the much popular Loudspeaker Riddim produced by the New York-based Dre Skull.
The-24-year-old then started to dig into his wide catalogue to bring out some of his early hits like Fake Friend, Dream and New Year.
Popcaan and the fans were in sync and the more he gave, the better it was received and given back to him tenfold.
There was no holding back from dancehall king as he started to belt out some of his more recent hits like Clarks, a collaboration he did with his jailed mentor Vybz Kartel and Vanessa Bling.
Clarks has been one of the biggest tunes in Zimbabwe since it was released in 2010, and Popcaan got full marks from the crowd.
Midway through the Jamaican’s act, an overzealous reveller jumped onto the stage and tried to hug the raving king and all hell broke loose.
An equally overzealous security guard moved in and pushed the man onto the floor and started assaulting him with a baton.
Within a space of few seconds, the man was badly injured and bleeding from the forehead when the police finally moved in to stop the brutal assault.
This did not go down well with Popcaan and the rest of the crowd who felt there was no need for such brutality on a fan who was just trying to get closer to his star.
Popcaan then started shouting on the mic: “Please stop beating up my fan!”
Bottles and empty cans started raining in from the upper deck as fans showed their disapproval to the way the security handled the situation.
Unfortunately, one of the missiles struck Popcaan on his right forehand and the Jamaican had to run to the back stage to seek cover.
After a brief stoppage, the situation was back to normal and Popcaan, who had not been seriously hurt by the missile, returned to the stage and continued with his show.
This time, he was back with a special segment for the ladies as he dropped some of his songs like Naughty Girl, Popcaan Say and Coolie Gal.
All the drama that had happened a few minutes earlier was quickly forgotten as Popcaan was able to raise the temperature once again inside the HICC.
The artiste closed his set with his widely popular tracks Party Shot, Clean, Raving, Summer Wave, Clean Stump and Only Man She Want.
After he finally left the stage, everyone in the crowd was just shouting out Popcaan’s catch phrase: “Yaaoow!” – Daily News