Cxmmunity hosted another successful Kickback event at the Tabernacle in Atlanta on Oct. 27. After a day of celebrating culture, fashion and gaming, G Herbo closed out the night with a headline performance.
Herbo jumped into the crowd at one point, and brought a fan on stage to rap along with him. After the song, he asked the fan about himself, and he proceeded to tell Herbo how his latest album helped him get through the grieving process of losing a family member this year. Herbo gave the devoted listener a long hug and left the stage.
After the show, Cxmmunity founder Ryan Johnson spoke to rolling out about the day’s events.
What were the highlights of the day for Cxmmunity?
Today we launched the inaugural event of the Kickback. The Kickback is basically the celebration of gaming, where we highlight education, gaming competition in the form of Esports, music, sneaker culture and some fashion culture as well.
What we ended up doing this morning is from nine to [noon], we had executives from Riot Games, which is one of the leading game developers in the world. They ended up talking to an audience of about 150 to 200 students about different ways to progress within the Esports space. A lot of people don’t know, but nearly 83 percent of African American teens play games on a weekly basis, but only 4 percent of the video game workforce is African American. So essentially, the Kickback overall is designed to provide education and access to opportunities to students of color.
From 1 p.m. to 6 p.m., we ended up having various Esports competitions. We had three HBCUs travel to Atlanta, where they competed in Valorant against another university. Then we had a League of Legends event between the University of North Georgia and also Georgia State, which was a pretty cool game. North Georgia actually had fans drive in, and had this whole cheering section. It was pretty dope. Then, of course, we ended the night with the concert with Timothy Isaiah, Kenny Mason and also G Herbo. … Shout-out to our sponsors, Riot Games and Prime Gaming. Shout-out to the Kickback overall. I’m looking forward to more of these.
What does it feel like to have G Herbo perform and these events come to fruition?
It was cool, it was so random. We ended up reaching out to G Herbo like two weeks ago. That was a really short timeline until the concert. But last Saturday, we were in Chicago, and we actually were speaking at a youth summit. [There was] an audience of about 300 to 400 young African American men in Chicago. G Herbo [spoke] right before me. I ended up speaking right after him about Esports and gaming. We got to talk about this in a very short format. It was dope that he was excited. He knew about the event … [he] knew the purpose of the event as well.
