AB is one of five venues in the center of Brussels to host the Fifty Lab music festival for three days from Wednesday, November 16th to Friday, November 18th. The Fifty Lab music festival team presents a programme with exciting showcases of promising Belgian artists as well as international upcoming artists. One ticket to Fifty Lab grants you access to all concerts.

Here’s what you’ll discover in the AB Club and AB Box during the third and final night of Fifty Lab.  

AB Box

Lander & Adriaan

Lander & Adriaan is a Belgian duo formed during the very first lockdown in 2020, after realizing they have a common fondness for slick digital synths and 90s underground dance music genres. After a bunch of very successful under-the-radar concerts, they recorded an album that was released in the spring of 2022. Their mashup of genres brings you to a pleasantly disturbed realm of unguilty pleasures, sheer weirdness and pure excitement. 

winnterzuko (FR)

winnterzuko is a promising talent of the new rap scene. He made his classes by going through the open mic. With this experience he built an original identity mixing sensitive texts and club sounds. winnterzuko presents "VON", a 7 tracks EP. For this release, he delivers his most personal project to date, while keeping his universe and his references notably to anime, video games or computers. On the production side we find artists with whom winnterzuko has already worked (abel31, Kochan, Kurama, Nyluu) and exclusive collaborations (Brodinski, Modulaw, Panteros666, Tony Seng, Koboi, Yunodji and Toxic). His sidekick Realo is present on the track "Help! The EP is released on the label Promesses.

Knucks (UK)

Following his Nas-inspired debut mixtape Illmatic (2014), rapper-producer Knucks has since garnered widespread acclaim with his innovative sound. With over 300 million streams, a rack of headline shows and festival dates, and a string of legendary collaborations from Stormzy to Kenny Beats, Knucks is rapidly becoming a household name throughout the UK and global hip-hop stage. By diversifying the sound of UK music, Knucks has steadily positioned himself as the leader of the new school. Knucks’s production style fuses a more stateside R&B- and jazz-influenced sound with contemporary UK hip-hop aesthetics. His iconic soundscapes include productions with yearnful sax-infused melodies, jazzy piano samples, and colourful string and synth textures undergirded with hard-hitting 808s and staggering drill rhythms. Equipped with solid lyrical prowess, Knucks brings a riveting narrative style to his production with effortless flow and cadence. Asked where he wants to be five years from now, Knucks laughs: “I just want to continue doing what I love and get paid for it.” With every release, that dream becomes more realised as 2022 becomes the most exciting year in this rising star’s career.”

AB Club

Ada Oda

Freshly landed on the Brussels scene, Ada Oda delivers an up-tempo binary rock that evokes both post-punk aplomb and the melodic flights of fancy that Italian variety has the secret of.

After a first tour of Belgian clubs where Ada Oda opened for bands like Wet Leg or The Cool Green House and the video to their single "Niente Da Offrire" that was widely relayed, the band is building a nice international fandom and is about to conquer the rest of Europe. 

Ottis Cœur 

Ottis Cœur is a French female duo made up of Margaux and Camille. Meandering through gentle verses and roaring choruses, these two free electrons gravitate around the same core: rock. Ottis Cœur rocks the block with the sound of fuzz guitars, amps pushed to saturation, voices harmonized in poetic flourishes. Advocating female emancipation, the tandem joined forces and involved itself in all stages of the creative process: recording, vocals, instruments, etc. Their first two tracks "Je Marche Derrière Toi" and "Cœur à Corps" sound like rock anthems, far from gender stereotypes. 

Smahlo (BE)

His name comes across as an unavoidable nod to the idea of forgiveness ("smahli" in Arabic), as to betray the singer’s true temperament. Before making it into the spotlight with his debut EP released back in November 2020, Smahlo had already made a name for himself landing the Red Bull Elektropedia prize for most promising artist of 2021, having barely scouted the field with a few tracks to his name. Produced alongside PH Trigano (Ichon, L'Or du Commun), Phasm (Roméo Elvis, Peet) or guitarist Youri Botterman (Damso, Lous and The Yakuza), the collaborations all seem to be linked by a thread, a story with great sensitivity and sincere moments shared in the studio. The Belgian and Congolese artist stands out with his sharp voice delivering hard-hitting lyrics that dig into his reality thanks to an impressive vocal range, raw and yet intricately soothing. Feeling melancholic at times, he harks back to the days gone by but bears no regrets, because the road taken was worth all the twists and turns Powering through the challenges and doubts, Smahlo’s career continues to rise thanks to unmistakably modern and caring songs.