Humber students bumped and grinded to the latin/carribean/raggeaton/hip hop infusion that is Fito Blanko at the Humber Students’ Federation concert event on Tuesday Sept. 9.
Humber’s energy vibrated through the North campus amphitheatre and onto the stage where Fito and his crew performed tracks from his unreleased album, First Class.
The Panama native turned Canadian artist says that he feeds off of the intense energy reverberated by the students at college shows.
“All my shows are very up-tempo, but I think that people who are in school have that adrenaline and they’re always ready to just go out there and party.”
And party they did. Climbing on stage, a Humber student got loose for the crowd while Fito broke out his favourite song to perform, ‘Get Loose’.
“It’s one of those songs that people don’t need to hear more than once to catch on,” Blanko said. “When you perform in front of a crowd that’s maybe not familiar with your music and you perform ‘Get Loose’, it just draws people in, and that’s what I like to do.”
His Panama background helped encourage the Latin vibe offered in his music, producing songs in both English and Spanish. Blanko says that it’s hard to put his music into a category because he’s trying to satisfy both audiences.
“It’s Latin Urban music as opposed to just raggaeton. To classify my music as raggaeton wouldn’t really fit. It’s more like Latin Caribbean music with dance hall; you got a little bit of soca in there, hip hop. It’s a mixture,” he said
First-year Business Administration student, Juan Olaya, said his taste buds were satisfied by Fito’s spicy mix of music.
“I’m originally from Columbia so his music kind of brings me home. I love it,” Olaya said.
North’s VP Campus Life, Aynur Duzgeren, said she believes it’s important to bring in an artist that’s different than artists Humber has had before.
“Other previous years we’ve always had bands that were more rock, so I thought that this year we’d make it different, change it up and bring new stuff to the students. I thought that he would be a great artist to bring to Humber because he is different,” Duzgeren said.
Fito topped the night off with a poster and CD signing, where students were able to get up close and personal with him and gain a free copy of First Class, not yet released in stores.
For those of you who missed out on the event and your free pre-released copy of Fito’s CD, you’ll have to wait for its release in October. To get your Fito fix, visit www.fitoblanko.com where all new tracks will be available for preview in October.
