Limitless Live at Five: Inside the UK's Biggest Free Music Event Spotlighting the Culture-Changing Artists You Need to Know

Viagogo has played a significant role as a key sponsor of Limitless Live, the UK's largest free music event held at the Roundhouse in Camden, providing essential funding and free transport for young attendees from major UK cities.

Now in its fifth year, Limitless Live has brought unmissable live music experiences to more than 12,000 young people, with a mission to inspire those from underrepresented backgrounds by making music and culture more accessible.

This year’s line up included BRIT and double MOBO nominated London-Columbian songstress Sasha Keable with support from emerging Soul R&B talents CARI and Olympia Vitalis.

After a brief warm up with resident DJs, ODYSSEII who took us to back to 2018, arguably one of the best years for music, brimming with nostalgia many, Kemoy who had us exercising out best footwork with a distinct flavour of Afrobeats and MVA closing down the set for the evening with Amapiano; the stage was laid bare for West London native Olympia Vitalis whose roots are grounded firmly in Gospel music and her adoration for Notting Hill Carnival.

Music was always an interest to Vitalis, who had previously attended University College London to study Sino-Japanese before taking her leap into a fully fledged music career after undertaking a Law Aptitude test whilst considering a law degree: “I scored quite lowly and thought that’s it. Maybe this isn’t for me.”

After meeting her manager, the rest was history and she began cementing her path as an artist drawing inspiration from Amy Winehouse and Aretha Franklin, which was evident in her heartfelt performance.

The inspiration behind her music stems from human nature with her recent EP ‘People Watching,’ focused on elements of observing without judging which she does seamlessly, especially when writing about other people, which she finds much easier than about herself, as it feels like a diary entry into her mind.

Growing up amongst the seas of colour in the biggest street festival in Europe, Notting Hill Carnival, the influence growing up going as a child and now as an artist still hold substantial weight in her craft and inspiration: “I just think Black voices have always been in my life and I think Gospel has built it that way,” she continues, “I write my music with such openness and inspired by the love that Black people have and give.”

She teases that her upcoming untitled project will have some love elements attached.

After Vitalis’ performance, emotive R&B singer CARI, accompanied by her guitar, had us all feeling the feels. There was a moment mid-set where she stripped everything back to just her and her instrument and the room swayed with her. Her debut single Colder in June rose to be a fan favourite instantly, clocking close to one million streams after an independent upload.

Her debut EP Flux was written as an act of escapism, reconnecting with Gospel, her father’s record shop and ancestral home of Grenada and with knowing that backstory, watching her perform it live felt like witnessing someone work through something in real time. The audience didn't need to know her to feel it. The reactions in the room said everything.

With Kendrick Lamar already paying attention and a successful EP, the night felt less like a rising artist’s moment and more like the beginning of an inevitability.

Within a short intermission, the melody of Faith Evans R&B ballad, Soon As I Get Home begins to seep through the speakers, accompanied by South London’s Colombiana herself, Sasha Keable, serenading us with her vocals layered under Evans.’ There’s a confidence in choosing to open your set underneath someone else’s vocals, it says I’m not threatened by greatness, I’m in the conversation with it.

Keable appeared with her rose-entwined mic and moved through Act Right, Tell Me What You Want, Tai Chi, Move It Along, Auction, WHY, Hold Up, Nobody, Feel Something and more. When she moved into Tai Chi, the venue became something else entirely, for a room full of young people, perhaps many in a room seeing live music for the first time, watching Sasha Keable own that stage was its own kind of permission slip.

With a BRIT nomination already under her belt and over 100 million streams to her name, tonight confirmed what her supporters have known for a while. Sasha Keable is not emerging. She has arrived.