2015 saw a lot of great concert tours, from J. Cole’s Forest Hills Drive Tour with Big Sean, YG and Jeremih to Taylor Swift’s huge 1989 World Tour. Some tours sold out stadiums and arenas, selling out the entire tour before it even begun, and some tours were in small intimate venues, either strategically or because simple supply and demand. Some had stacked lineups top to bottom and some introduced us to a lot of great new artists. Festivals like Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo and Coachella were bigger than ever this year, but that didn’t stop your favorite artists from building up some great shows of their own.
Hit the jump and check out our list of our 20 Favorite Concert Tours of 2015!
It’s official: In the year 2015, the concept of the mixtape is officially dead. The entire EP/LP/mixtape distinction has become so goddamn ambiguous and loosely attributed to a vast amount of projects to the point of no return, and with the release of their collaborative “mixtape” that was sold on iTunes and featured on streaming services, hip-hop megastars Future and Drake have provided the final nail in the coffin as they are projected to sell 500,000 copies of What A Time To Be Alive in their first week. Yes, their “mixtape” just sold more copies in it’s first week than Kanye and Jay Z’s polished, much publicized, artful collaboration “album”, Watch The Throne. Ye and Hov had a-list guests such as Beyoncé and Frank Ocean, and had a legion of the world’s greatest producers at hand to pitch in. They also had Ricardo Tisci, the creative director for Givenchy, design the album’s luxe and innovative art and packaging. Future and Drake, on the other hand, threw together eleven tracks in six days with beats almost entirely from Metro Boomin. Also, the cover art for the project is literally a cropped Shutterstock image.
No, we’re not making that up. But the truth is, this is the first time in hip-hop history that the two undisputed hottest rappers of the time have joined forces to materialize a project in the middle of both of their own respective hot-streaks. Future is coming off a legendary run with some of the most high-octane mixtapes we’ve ever heard and an incredible album effort just months ago with DS2. In the red corner, Drake is coming off his own scorching mixtape and highly-successful mini-tour with If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late—a project that many critics and fans credit with being the most potent, dense, and interesting offering Drizzy has ever released. Although the accolades were seemingly already written with just the announcement of the project, the real question remains: What A Time To Be Alive might have been a commercial cash-grab and a creative lay-up, but is it good?
The first thing you hear as you press play on What A Time is not Drake nor Future. Instead, it’sa fade-in of one of the most distinct producer tags of 2015—Young Thug incoherently saying, “Metro Boomin’ want some mo’, n*gga” as these cheap, FL Studio synths begin to buzz in a trance, introducing the abrasive introduction, ‘Digital Dash’. Before you know it, the beat unexpectedly drops and Future is running with the baton. He mumbles and stumbles with a familiar flow before building his verse into a more articulate result, one that is reflective and sobering, ironically about his vices and drug use. “When I was sleepin’ on the floor you shoulda seen how they treat me/I pour the Actavis and pop pills so I can fight the demons” he says, all before Drake cuts in to add his own grit and structure. It’s right off the rip that you realize Drake might be adding his own flavours, but all in all, he’s playing Future’s game. With context, you will realize that this tape was recorded in a matter of days in Atlanta, over beats by Future’s in-house producers. There’s one 40 beat that serves as the intro. There’s absolutely no sense of Toronto within this project. Instead, Drake uses his bars all over this tape to exercise escapism, and adapt to his surroundings.
Every song on this tape screams Atlanta. There is barely any unorthodox moments, curveballs or occasions that will have you impressed by innovation. Metro is doin’ Metro. Southside is doin’ Southside. Even 40 does 40. Drake and Future do little to step out of their respective boxes too, but they do flaunt their particular artistic quirks from time to time. Slapper ‘Jumpman’ sees the return of Drake’s ‘6 Man’ flow and as much as it’s a stylistic lay-up, the fact is, it’s a sonic slam dunk. Standout “Diamonds Dancing” features Future crooning back to his Honest days, serving as a traditional ballad all until Aubrey comes in and breaks down the song with an almost Take Care-era demeanour. As the drums fade out, Drake is left with a simple chord progression as he moans about a woman that left him to dry as he gets his chance to air her out on the track. “Ungrateful,” he croaks in an almost drunken state, all before my personal favourite: “Your momma be ashamed of you”.
The flows can catch you off guard, though. Future’s slow, leaned out flow is a great juxtaposition next to Drake’s hyperactive delivery on ‘I’m the Plug’, and even on ‘Live From the Gutter’, Drake morphs the track with a flow sounding like just about any other southern rapper, but he beats them at their own game. It might sound unfair, but Drake has the charisma to say what anyone else can say better than they could. Throughout all the controversy of ghost-writers lately and regardless of whether or not Drake gets some help with writing, the truth still stands: It’s not what you say, but how you say it, and Drake will have you beat every single time. Still, Drake is not even the most prominent rapper on this tape. This is definitely more of a welcome addition to Future’s project-streak than Drake’s. As previously mentioned, this project was conceived in Future’s home plate and done at Future’s work pace, and it definitely sounds like it. Future uses his home-court advantage as leverage and burns through the tape with every bar sounding natural and effortless, all while Drizzy rides shotgun.
Drake uses the album’s outro, ’30 for 30 Freestyle’ as his real message to the outside world. He conversationally spits about handling the Meek drama like a champ, still being on top despite actual conspiracies from industry powers to dethrone him, and reflecting through his life and his growth as a person—all over top of gentle, elegant keys with a kick pounding like a heartbeat, courtesy of none other than 40. It’s here where Drake comes down from the escapism of being in Atlanta and playing by Future’s rules for a short amount of time, all while he sobers up on his sonic journey back to the sounds of Toronto. It was during this final piece of the project that I saw What A Time To Be Alive’s true value—not as a polished, cohesive piece of art, but as a gritty, fast-paced journey through the spoils, vices and emotions that a weekend in Atlanta can evoke. So, use this wisely as the current soundtrack to a night on the town, or as music to drive through the city to, but don’t mistake this project for being something that will stand the test of time and be a sonic culture-shift for hip-hop. It will probably have a legacy based off the numbers and the sheer details surrounding the mixtape, and truth be told, this project is definitely more of a moment than a timeless addition in Future and Drake’s respective careers. However, as a soundtrack of right now, what else could you ask for?
For being the most hyped about rapper with the least amount of music out (and no new music/projects in a very long time), Jay Electronica is really feeling himself. And during a recent performance at the XOYO in London, the Roc Nation signee called out the whole rap game, specifically Drake and label-mate J. Cole. “You (Drake) may be the 6 God, but I am thee God,” Jay Electronica announced to the crowd. “I’m sorry, but J. Cole don’t got bars like this. Whoever your favorite rapper is, they all know I’m the God!” It will be interesting to see if anyone responds to Jay’s confidence on this, and hopefully Jay puts out a diss record so his fans can get so much anticipated new music.
Watch Jay Electronica call out the whole rap game below.
Moments after the beautiful 19-year old Alessia Cara blessed the stage at Squamish Valley Music Festival on Saturday, among the piercing screams and thunderous applause, a strangely sweaty onlooker beside me tapped my shoulder and said, “She is f-cking amazing. Who is she?” I immediately filled him in, and watched his face light up as he tapped her name into his notes on his iPhone, only to ask moments later, “How do you spell that?” Moments like those are all collateral of Alessia, currently occupying a strange place in music. She might possess one of the most incredible, refreshing voices in pop, yet she only has one single under her name.
The sullen and petulant ‘Here’ was most of the world’s introduction to Alessia Cara and is the ultimate anti-party banger that delivers and astounds on plenty of levels. Her explosive voice made famous through her YouTube-famed covers of pop favorites cuts through the track and is equal parts sugary-sweet and dominant, the Issac Hayes sampling instrumental offers a retro nod to an 80’s classic while feeling modern and ballroom-chic, but hands down the most impressive component of Alessia’s first original offering to the universe is her writing. Alessia flawlessly places the listener into her gone-sour party experience while flowing with a relentlessness and shine reminiscent of a rapper. No, really. In contrast to the formulaic and nursery-rhymed pop hits that usually consume radio, Alessia Cara utilized a timely flow that sounds more like a rant or stream of consciousness and just when you feel that she’s about to run about of breath, she masterfully steps back and slaps you with a wave of tender melodies.
Few artists get to where Alessia Cara currently is, and frankly, even fewer do what she is about to do. The Canadian songstress is poised to stun and woo the masses with her eclectic, genre-blending debut EP Four Pink Walls dropping August 28th through Def Jam Records, and a full length album to follow shortly in the Fall. With #AlessiaSeason in full effect, I was lucky enough to talk to her over the phone just days after watching her tear down the stage.
Alessia comes across self-aware and not afraid to speak her mind, but she is also a remarkably gentle young woman who fully comprehends the surreal nature of her position. “It’s really, really awesome,” she replies, when I bring up her decision to tour her unreleased material around the world. “I already have people telling me their my fans and enjoying my songs and singing my lyrics,” she adds with disbelief. “I never expected it to be like this and this soon.”
It might feel soon, but in reality, she’s been racking up respectable amounts of views on her YouTube videos she’s been posting since she was thirteen. Most of them are covers of hit songs with her strumming away at a guitar and belting out notes in front of a webcam, while others are videos of her interacting with her fanbase and showcasing the same coy, soft-spoken girl I was on the phone with. With that said, YouTube views aren’t exactly as effective as a measure of success in the same way festival stages and chart-topping singles are. “I’m really new, so I think a lot of people don’t know who I am yet” she admits, acknowledging her unique position.
“I’m just trying to make good first impressions and play songs I think people will enjoy.”
As the release date of her first ever project creeps closer, Alessia finds solace and plenty of thrills in performing songs people don’t even know yet. “It’s good to have some upbeat stuff that people can at least dance to” she says. “If they can’t sing along, I might as well try and get them pumped up in different ways.”
Four Pink Walls is a project with a title that reflects the isolation and detachment experienced in her childhood bedroom. With songs like ‘Here’ and the live previews I was able to take in, it seems as though Alessia’s music on this EP will continue to narrate the trials and tribulations of being a thoughtful, reclusive teenager with a lot to say. “Lyrically, I guess it’s really wordy,” she reveals. “I don’t know, I guess I just like fitting as many words into a song as possible.”
Of all the things I had read about her process crafting her album and EP, the most interesting anecdote was her work with Malay Ho, a producer known for crafting the sonic landscapes and producing a majority of one of the greatest, most renowned albums in modern history, Frank Ocean’s channel ORANGE.
“I’m a huge Frank Ocean fan and that album was amazing, and in getting to meet him I got to ask him questions and go inside the thought process behind the album.” she says. Alessia continued to break down the two songs they conceived with a feverish sense of excitement. “One of them is called ‘Wild Things’ that i’ve performed acoustically before, but the produced-out version is my favorite because it’s huge and it’s like, an anthem.” The other record, ‘Stone’, is described by Alessia as an “awesome guitar based ballad” that demonstrates Malay’s versatility. “I got to spend a good chunk of time with him in the studio,” she boasts. “It wasn’t like in-and-out, it was like, really working together.”
Alessia is remarkably strategic and ambitious about the days ahead of her. When asked about following up her smash hit, she is quick to throw away the concept of catering to anyone or anything. “I don’t ever like to try to make a hit or write a ‘next single’,” she explains.
“I just try to be completely honest and make songs that I would like first of all because I think those are the ones that resonate the most.”
As she prepares to drop two projects before the year’s end, the balance of impact and longevity is something Alessia has her sights set on. As she strives to create bodies of work that will speak to her generation, she isn’t afraid to admit that she looks to great albums of the past as a blueprint, specifically citing her love for fellow Ontario-native Drake’s modern classic, Take Care.
“I mean, you remember the singles, but it’s not like you remember it for the number one singles. You think, ‘Drake had an amazing, classic album,’”says Alessia. “That’s what I want it to be. It’s really about making it a project and a body of work rather than just a whole bunch of singles or a whole bunch of songs that are just forced together and call it an album.” It’s moments like this that open my eyes to how methodical and serious Alessia is about her craft. She’s not just in this to be the talk of the blogosphere for a couple months. She doesn’t just want the song of the summer. She isn’t just on some “happy to be here” mentality. She is fixated on the idea of legacy and affecting the world with quality, brilliant music.
Alessia’s appreciation for Drake has been well documented and has evolved into a running-gag in most of her previous interviews as she’s called him out repeatedly and pleaded for them to have an interaction. Hilariously enough, I was originally supposed to interview Alessia in person at Squamish, but a wrench was thrown in her schedule when she was randomly blessed with aDM from the 6 God himself moments before he took the stage, resulting in their first, much anticipated encounter.
“So, I’ve called him out and stalked him,” she explains, giggling. “I was sitting around waiting for his performance, and I just get a DM, casually, from Drake!” She goes on to tell me her frantic reactions which involve her having a heart attack and question life itself. As the DM informs her that someone is coming to get her, she proceeds to freak out some more and she impersonates the OVO crew member that came to get her, comically butchering her name saying, “Are you Alicia?”
After our many pauses of laughter and incessant giggles, she walks me through the process of wading through security and ultimately approaching his trailer to which Drake emerged and voiced his enthusiasm to meet her. “It was the best 5 minutes of my life”, she reflects, but it was probably pretty awesome for Drake too. After all, he had just met one of music’s most promising voices in a very, very long time.
Purchase Alessia Cara’s single ‘Here’ and look out for her Four Pink Walls EP released August 28th through Def Jam Recordings.
For those who have logged onto a computer within the past few days, the escalatingbeefbetween Meek Mill and Drake is likely not breaking news. Meek’s accusations of Drake employing ghostwriters set off a firestorm that went from bad to worse over a sprawling series of tweets, and as of now, it’s only spreading as other rappersattempt to insert their two cents. No one can truly confirm whether or not an individual in the shadows penned lyrics for the head of OVO, but fortunately, there are certain lines only Drake could have crafted. In order to help figure out where those lyrics reside, we’ve compiled 10 tracks that definitely came from the mind of Canada’s finest.
It is crazy to think that only five or six years ago, the highest paid and most popular hip-hop artists at the moment hadn’t even released their first LP’s yet, but instead were releasing strings of mixtapes for free. Since then, these same people have come into millions of dollars and fans through the continued support of their wide album releases. J. Cole did it, Nicki Minaj did it, Logic did it, Big Sean did it, and Drake did it.The reason they were able to maintain and grow a following of dedicated listeners was because of the high quality and consistency of the music they made. If you look in the headlines now, you will see some potentially true and undeniably sad claims about Drake. Apparently, he has been using a ghostwriter (someone paid to write an artist’s songs for them) to write the songs he records, performs and releases.
The fact that one of the catchiest hook-makers and overall most enjoyable artists may be only creating a fraction of his music is incredibly disheartening. As I mentioned earlier, Drake wasn’t always as successful as he now is. As a matter of fact he used to rap about his strong desire to achieve success in the rap game. In early 2009, he released a mixtape called, So Far Gone to major acclaim. It was then turned into a remastered and altered seven song EP by the same name later that year. Being that this was Drake’s first foray into this area of the industry he likely didn’t have a ghost writer yet and his music was completely authentic. It definitely sounded like it.
From the very beginning we are greeted with a crooning singing voice from Drake and he is addressing a situation that involves a woman he loves and can’t be with. In-house producer 40 comes through with a soothing synthed-out beat with drums that sound like they are exiting a long drowning tunnel. By the time the four minute and fifty second mark hits we are well aware of Drake’s ability both vocally and with a pen (assuming it was him). Next, snappy snares provide the rhythm Drake needs to explain his shot at success and why he deserves it. Trey Songz on the chorus and a verse from Lil Wayne fail to dwarf Drake which is impressive considering the level he was at, at the time. It is a great juxtaposition of where he is at now compared to then is perfectly conveyed in this song when Drake describes life on a tour bus. From tour bus to what I imagine is now an excessively large private jet, Drake has definitely achieved that goal.
The third song is no doubt, the biggest, most important songs on the album and possibly of Drake’s career. ‘Best I Ever Had’ is the epitome of a radio smash: catchy-hook, simple yet memorable beat and a grocery list of quotable lines. It was great, plain and simple. From there, ‘Uptown’ gives Drake some time to show us his braggadocio skills. The instrumental just drips with class, naturally, as it samples Billy Joel. Drake lays down a chorus that rivals and potentially overtakes ‘Best I Ever Had’ in terms of its catchiness and effectiveness. There should have been a one-second track called ‘Sigh’ inserted between ‘Uptown’ and ‘I’m Goin In’. It is a sad transition from a very original song in terms of production to a song that sounds like it was manufactured by dozens of people specifically for the radio/club. It has Lil Wayne, Drake and even Young Jeezy dropping some potent punch lines which are the only things that allow this song to retain some of its surrounding material’s value but overall could have been replaced by a far better song from Drake’s musical catalog.
The last two songs, ‘The Calm’ and ‘Fear’ are most foreshadowing of Drake’s musical direction for the next few years. Very introspective and personal, Drake even cuts the rap on ‘The Calm’ and has a short rhetorical conversation with the listener about forgiveness. He ad-libs in “Damn” a couple times after a few of his deeper bars which only reflect how literal Drake is being. His music on this EP is noticeable electronic, but that is just his style, and a good one at that. On the last track ‘Fear’ he raps completely free of electronic voice-alteration and points it out trying to put himself at an open and vulnerable place. The chorus is a vocalization of his fears and the verses fortify his insecurities. Track-to-track, concepts jump around, but they eventually culminate to a few songs that sit comfortably next to one another and show Drake for who is is, rather than who is trying to be. All of the music sounds great on one level or another, but the instances where it all comes together show clearly why the mixtape is one of the most successful in the history of the internet and warranted a far too short but more refined EP.
Nigerian artist Wizkid’s infamous song “Ojuelegba” was discovered by many people after playing on OVO Sound’s Beats 1 radio station last Saturday. The surprise remix with Drake and Skepta premiered on OVO Sound Radio without an announcement beforehand. Today, Skepta released the official audio on his SoundCloud. Listen to the summer jam below.
Although Spotify is doing better than ever, Apple Music is doing all it can to take over the throne. And now, exclusively for Apple Music users, Drake has released his new and highly anticipated music video for his If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late track ‘Energy’. The video is absolutely hilarious, so you judge for yourself if it’s worth getting Apple Music.
Watch Drake’s official music video for ‘Energy’ here at Apple Music or stream it here or belowwhile you still can (it won’t be up for long).
Atlanta’s own, singer/rapper Future, is releasing a follow up to his critically acclaimed 2011 mixtape, Dirty Sprite. The project, of course titled Dirty Sprite 2 (DS2), will be on sale through iTunes (pre-order now) and releases in just one week (July 17)! Not only will DS2 feature 18-tracks, which so far include ‘Blow a Bag’, ‘Real Sisters’, and his successful ‘F*ck Up Some Commas’, but the project will also feature Drake.
Drake goes 0 to 100 real quick, but it took him a minute to finally make a track like ‘100’ with The Game. It was about time that Drizzy and the former G-Unit rapper team up again since The Game’s 2011 LP, The R.E.D. Album ,with ‘Good Girls Go Bad’. Both rappers deliver on this one (with Drake providing the hook), and the soulful sample is amazing!
The Early Registration 