Our Rating: B

During Art Basel, people get the opportunity to be exposed to mediums of all kinds. People are painting, drawing, sculpting, performing, and ultimately gaining exposure in front of a huge audience. But outside the venues on South Beach and Wynwood, people are showcasing their art in unsuspected places. On Dec. 6th, several artists took the stage at a concert held behind the National YoungArts Foundation headquarters, located on 2100 Biscayne Boulevard. The YoungArts program seeks out artistic talent in high schoolers across the nation and takes advantage of opportunities to display their incredible abilities. The tented venue featured the DJ SBTRKT and rapper A$AP Ferg, but also showcased up and coming artists who participate in the program: Elliot Skinner, Grace Weber, and Kate Davis.

The three unknown artists were held with appreciation by the audience, and although the crowd was small, they voiced their excitement thoroughly. Elliot performed with an emotional, mellow voice similar to Jason Mraz and Sam Smith, and Grace Weber sounded similar to Ingrid Michaelson with her bluesy, soulful music. Kate Davis wowed the crowd with her deep lyrics and catchy songs, and received a huge round of applause for her cover of “Blister in the Sun” by Violent Femmes.

A$AP FERG, one of the main acts, was met with tons of excitement and some relief, because it took a pretty long amount of time to get onstage–about 2 and a half hours; a pretty long wait for a concert that was supposed to start at 7. As A$AP became more and more passionate in his rapping, the crowd became more and more aggressive, so at a future concert, watch out for flying appendages and water bottles.

SBTRKT was met with even more excitement, and was able to make the crowd forget that they didn’t start their set until after 11 PM. While ASAP inspired aggression, people mellowed out during SBTRKT and its techno beats, enjoying the cool sounds and engaging tones. Some of the songs played were: “Never, Never”, “Pharaohs”, and “Temporary View”.

Overall, this concert taught people patience (from all the waiting) and how music can affect people (by making them aggressive or relaxed), but it also exposed them to the variety of music, and how meaningful it is to the artists. To check out more great YoungArt events visit http://www.youngarts.org/events.