House of Wavvez Highlights the Oklahoma Hip-Hop and R&B Scene

Oklahoma City’s Blue Note Lounge hosted House of Wavvez on Thursday, Oct. 16.

The showcase was curated by Original Flow, featuring the Wavvez, Branjae, and Sarafina Byrd. 

These Oklahoman artists created a soulful night, filled with a variety of funky bass lines, powerful lyrics, and mesmerizing vocals. A variety of genres like soul, R&B, jazz, and hip hop were presented throughout the night.

Sarafina Byrd was the first to perform; she opened up the show with a mix of original songs and covers. Her song “More Than Friends” is accompanied by a dreamy keyboard melody along with her velvety vocals. She also performed a cover of “Walking on Sunshine,” originally by Katrina and the Waves, making it her own by slowing down the tempo, highlighting the charming lyrics. 

Tulsa musician Branjae was next to the stage. Her set was a journey through different genres and vibrations. Her vocal prowess was rich with emotional power. Her performance was commanding, using every inch of the stage to its fullest potential. 

“I will be performing original songs I wrote at many different stages in life. We will be floating genres from Soul to Rock to Blues. It’s going to be a storytelling good time of human experience and realness,” she said before the showcase.

She performed her newest song that was released on Oct. 10, “On the Ground”. 

“Life inspired the song. I was looking around at all the chaos in politics, the windstorm of disaster in my personal life, my intrusive thoughts winning all rounds, everything. I didn’t know at the time a song was coming, but I’m grateful for it all,” she said about the inspiration behind her new release.

She left everything on that stage, literally and figuratively. She shed her layers of outerwear, ending in a white dress. This element of her performance felt representative of how each song exposed something else about her life experience. 

Original Flow and the Wavvez closed out the show with an endless amount of euphony within his poetic performance. Flow has an effortless grasp on language that creates such vibrant images but also promotes a message.

“I remember at an early age when I was still in high school, and we had prejudice in my school. That was like the first time I experienced something like that, and I had to write about it. I wrote about that stuff in school, and that’s when I knew my gift was more than just me saying things that rhymed or rapping really fast or whatever was trendy.”

“I knew I had a bigger purpose than to just talk about whatever. I’d rather talk about my experiences.” 

Flow says that he writes from his experiences and does not put on a persona to perform; he is his authentic self. He wants to talk about every aspect of his journey, good or bad, through music. 

It was evident through his performance that his words truly impacted the room. 

Flow described the show as, “A giant dynamic of culture and music. Where true music lovers can go to enjoy music. Not a place for a watered-down performance, they go all out.”

He continued, “The whole show is built around a concept of realism, culture, and the ability to feel free. Music has gotten repetitive, but a lacks soul and inspiration in it. The showcase is about connecting the Oklahoman people and understanding how powerful our people are.”