Gates opened at 11 a.m., as excited CSU East Bay students and guests began to gather on the University Union lawn on the Hayward campus at CSUEB. Blaring hip-hop and rap music echoed throughout the campus.

Associated Students Inc. hosted the annual Springfest concert Saturday, with headlining artists such as, Wale, Ab-Soul and Jhene Aiko and featured artists Casey Veggies and Travi$ Scott.

“I thought it was great energy, I actually got there early so I wasn’t really concerned about the crowd,” said Jessica Bryant, a sophomore in communications at CSUEB. “I was right in the front, I could care less what was behind me as long as it wasn’t knocking me out.”

The DJ began to warm-up the crowd with popular old and newer rap music. People began to jump with enthusiasm. Free black bandanas were thrown from the stage and reusable and foldable water containers were given to everyone in the crowd.

After the DJ set, the opener got the crowd going and was followed by hip-hop recording artist Travi$ Scott.

Following Travi$ Scott, rapper Casey Veggies took to the stage to perform his songs, ‘Life Changes’ and ‘Everything Wavy.’  Veggies, who on May 10 released a new single, “Money Don’t Buy Time,” was thrilled to be performing at Springfest.

“I love it, [the venue] is cool, this is like the perfect size,” said Veggies. “l love performing for college students because they get into it, it’s always the best, they relate.”

Veggies, who has performed with artists such as Tyler the Creator and Kendrick Lamar, also performed with another Springfest artist Jhene Aiko, and also joined her onstage for one of her songs.

The American pop, R&B singer and songwriter Aiko, with her smooth jazzy tone and guitar, bassist and drummer behind her, had the crowd bobbing their heads to her rhymes. Her barefoot, 5’ 2”, tattoo covered frame serenaded the crowd and according to Aiko, “the Bay has the best audience ever.”

Though it wasn’t just the audience that these artists captivated, but also the ASI staff and volunteers were loving each moment, singing and even coming on stage to dance.

“Well I have two favorites, my two top are Wale and Jhene Aiko; I definitely told ASI I want to do this next year, it’s been great,” said Briana Wharton, ASI Street Team member. “So basically me and a couple other girls, our duty was to come here at 8:30 in the morning and set up tents, barricades, and help set up tables just basic stuff and also ticketing… I wanna get into something like this, like for a career.”

After much anticipation, American rapper Ab-Soul came onto the stage building the crowd’s excitement with the passion in his songs such as ‘Pineal Gland’ and ‘Track Two’ followed by Springfest’s most popular and well-known artist Wale.

Wale, who showed up late to the concert, was the highlight of many audience members’ day. Guests, Ebony Vincent and Yolanda Hall both came just to see Wale, some of their favorite songs being, “Bad” and “Diary” and anticipate his third album ‘Gifted’ which will drop June 25 of this year.

“I think he’s a good lyricist,” said local resident, KaiLyn Lewis. “I don’t like his rap music so much as I like his words, he’s a better poet.”

Just like on stage, behind the stage was just as busy. ASI and Street Team members ran back and forth between making the artists comfortable and getting them ready to perform. Artists roamed the New Union with their ‘crew’ of friends and managers, being served catered food. One artist even requested that they have their own catered food table to themselves.

“Springfest was a little more sophisticated. The artists at Bayfest were more underground artists versus like Springfest’s more established artists,” said Bryant. “I appreciate the energy of Bayfest, but I loved the artists at Springfest.”