This Kelowna event is ready to showcase hip hop, R&B talent

When Teon Gibbs started making music in Kelowna, he struggled to find a path to help incubate and accelerate his passion for hip hop and R&B.

He studied and started his career here but was forced – like many other musicians – to relocate to Vancouver.

Flash forward to 2023, and his do-it-yourself attitude has resulted in Culture Con 23.

The three-day conference-style event will do everything he wished he had access to as an emerging artist – workshops, showcases, and networking with industry professionals.

“I wanted to take the community I built in Vancouver and Kelowna, marry them together, and build more infrastructure for the talented artists that are here, so they don’t have to leave,” Gibbs told Kelowna10. “It’s great for talented artists to stay here and have a healthy music economy in Kelowna.”

Behind elevating the rich, burgeoning talent in Kelowna, Culture Con will aim to shine a light on the broad range of music being produced in the Okanagan Valley.

As a R&B and hip hop artist, as well as a Black artist, showcasing a bill ripe with diversity is important for Gibbs.

He said a wide swath of artists don’t get the same opportunity to perform in the city, and he hopes to “champion the culture in that regard.

“The idea is you come to this event and discover someone who in two or three years is going to be huge,” he explained. “We have a couple headliners who are close to becoming mainstream artists.”

The event, Gibbs hopes, ignites a fire to assemble the necessary infrastructure to vault talented Okanagan and B.C. artists into the mainstream.

“I can see this event growing and people’s careers flourishing from this event.”

Culture Con 23 runs from July 14 to 16 at Red Bird Brewing and Vice & Virtue Brewing Co. Tickets are available online.