Andre Nickatina is a rap artist from San Francisco’s Fillmore District. Nickatina began gaining notoriety in the early 90’s after releasing albums “The New Jim Jones” and “I Hate You With A Passion” under the aka ‘Dre Dog.’ Since then Nickatina has been releasing music consistently while reaching a diverse audience.
On Saturday July 24 2023 I was fortunate enough to have attended his show title “Andre Nickatina Reimagined by Symphony.” The show started with, engineer and long time friend, Mark 5 giving a speech introducing himself and telling the story about how he got started working with Nickatina. According to Mark 5 he owned a recording studio in San Francisco in the early 90s. He convinced Nickatina to come to his studio to record and also managed to slip a couple of production credits on his album “I Hate You With A Passion.” Those 2 songs are “Situation Critical” and “Killa Whale.” In the video highlights below Mark 5 can be seen standing up from his from row seat and bowing to the symphony giving them his blessing as they began performing “Killa Whale.”
An hour goes by and Andre Nickatina is no where to be seen by the audience. Many even questioned whether he was going to show up at all. When the symphony finished performing the last song of the show the audience cheered and the demands to bring Nickatina on stage grew louder and louder. Then finally he came out on stage and said a few words.
I put together a video highlighting some of the Andre Nickatina songs that were performed.