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From lavender and burgundy suits matched with Nike Air Force 1s to elegant black and gold dresses coupled with jewelry, students dressed to impress for the second Reneprom last weekend.

On Saturday, Renegade Magazine, the first and only Black general interest magazine at Syracuse University, hosted Reneprom at the Community Folk Art Center from 7-10:30 p.m. Throughout the night, students got the chance to enjoy music from DJ Jill, along with multiple student musicians, including Shakira and LAFromNewYork.

Fawaz Okoya, the co-editor-in-chief of Renegade, has been with the magazine since his freshman year in 2018. Even when he wasn’t an official member of the e-board, Okoya contributed to every meeting and helped organize the first Reneprom in 2020. The SU senior said he was grateful that he had the chance to officially organize this year’s event, as last year’s was canceled due to the pandemic.

“It’s a great experience to now actually be leading it,” Okoya said. “The people at Renegade were the first ones to welcome me, a Black kid from New Jersey, with open arms.”

While the venue was packed with around 100 students, some of the partygoers wished that more students could join in on the dancing instead of hanging in the back.

“I’m having fun, but I want to know why no one else is dancing,” Kyliah Almeida, an SU graduate student, said. “I’m personally pushing P, but I can’t push P by myself.”

Students are typically used to wearing sweatpants and jeans around campus, and being able to dress to impress while having a good time is something attendees shouldn’t take for granted, Almeida said.

Amber Deas, a senior at SU, shared similar thoughts. Although she loved the event space and the energy brought out by the music and the number of attendees, she found it unfortunate that not a lot of people were dancing early on.

Later on in the night, the crowd eventually came together to dance to popular throwback tracks played by DJ Jill, including “Teach Me How to Dougie” by Cali Swag District and the popular line dance known as the “Cupid Shuffle.”

Marel Pryor, who is also an SU senior, said that along with the music, her favorite parts of the night included seeing the different outfits and energy that everyone brought to Reneprom.

3/5. See you then.

A photo posted by renegademagsu

By 9 p.m., student musicians started taking the stage. LAFromNewYork, who sang covers of songs like Drake’s “Controlla,” encouraged students to have fun as they saw fit.

“It doesn’t matter who messes with your vibes,” the artist said to the audience as he performed a slowed version of the 2016 “Views” hit.

Other student musicians, including Shakira and ISHĒ, took the stage as well. ISHĒ encouraged the already loud audience to give him more noise, and Shakira wowed attendees with her vocal range as she sang covers of songs like “At Last” by Etta James.

Before the night came to an end, the audience got to decide who came to the event looking the best dressed. Ten students — five female and five male — were called up to the front, and participants who garnered the loudest reactions from the crowd were deemed winners.

Andrew Prado-Alipui, the co-photo director of Renegade, was one of the victors of the contest. He was happy that he got to walk home with the crown because of his burgundy suit, but he didn’t expect to win by any means.

“Funny enough, I was really running late and I had no time to get ready,” he said. “I just threw my suit on in five seconds.”

As the night came to a close, Prado-Alipui echoed the thoughts of the students in attendance.

“It was great to see everybody in great spirits tonight,” Prado-Alipui said. “In these tough times we’ve been having, a lot of things have happened to people, so to see everybody come together is great.”

Published on March 7, 2022 at 11:24 pm

Contact Siron: sthoma10@syr.edu | @sironthomas