Osheaga 2016 is finished, and throughout the many performers, Lana Del Rey shined as one of my favourite sets of the festival. Lana was faced with the daunting task of headlining on a Saturday in between Red Hot Chilli Peppers and the weekend attraction, Radiohead, while sharing the same performance timeslot as rap heavyweight Future.
Here was Lana, with her smooth, calm and angelic toned music, pitted against the energetic, gritty, rock and rap type artists and their fans that occupied Osheaga grounds. It is understandable that there would be those who would be unimpressed and unentertained by her low-key style performance yearning for something more energetic; the thought of a Radiohead stan trying to enjoy Lana amuses me. “Snoozy” and “underwhelming” are the adjectives that some use to describe Lana’s performance. The undeniable truth is that this is just what Lana’s music embodies. Lana is not a party artist and her music is hardly energetic. Her music – especially her performances – will not win you over with her energy and movement; instead, she will amaze you with her vocal delivery and the emotion she pours into her sound. Her movements are subtle but still orchestrated to the song, and her actions are very casual. Much more than just a performance - it is as if you were witnessing Lana’s story unfold. Creating a west coast vibe – with a palm trees setting, yellow sundress and a neon “Del Rey” in the backdrop – Lana transforms the Parc Jean-Drapeau setting allowing the audience to further experience her story she intends to illustrate. Lana has evolved as a live performer, especially since her infamous SNL performance. Her vocal delivery and stage presence has become increasingly intimate, and her movements, while still casual and minimal, are well practiced and synchronized perfectly to her performance. This is what made her show unique; during her performance of Off To The Races, Lana would move her arms, as if she was running in place, along with her background singers to mimic the chorus of her song, and her simple movement would mesmerize the crowd. During Born to Die, she would casually smoke a cigarette with one hand, and perform her song with the microphone in the other. She would physically imply different methods of drug intake whenever she would sing the line “let’s go get high” through different hand gestures, and with every move of her hand, the crowd loved it. I have never experienced a performer who would hardly move during her performance, but was still able to captivate their crowd. Everything Lana would do made it seem like the performance was out of a black and white script. Her barely mobile movements, and smokey/dreamy voice drew reactions because it felt like a film. To top it off, the fireworks that accompanied Born To Die, Honeymoon and High By The Beach was fantasy-like, creating an unforgettable performance. Lana would then spend a couple minutes with the fans in the front row, taking pictures with them before closing with Off To The Races. Tease of the night: when Lana walked off stage and went to the crowd to interact with the fans. She came back on to the stage with a Canada flag gifted from a fan. I thought for sure she would go into National Anthem, but instead she closed off the concert
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Vince Staples is a West Coast artist hailing from Long Beach, California. Vince, not known for a party-style of music, creates an extremely dark atmosphere with his rap music. It seems as if Vince aims for this frightening picture he creates as many of his singles and mixtapes revolve around the use of minimalistic beats and dark, violent lyrics to illustrate his story. While the beats he uses are minimalistic, the way Vince raps in correlation to the beats creates a certain melodic groove to what he projects, especially the dark imagery that he portrays, which in turn becomes addicting and memorable.
Vince is slated for a 50-minute performance on Osheaga Friday. I was first introduced to Vince through his involvement on the Rocky and Tyler tour. A$AP Rocky and Tyler, The Creator headlined a tour together last fall, along with special guests Vince Staples and Danny Brown, which made a stop in Toronto at TD Echo Beach. In preparation for the Toronto show, I listened to each artist extensively, including Vince Staples and his debut album Summertime ‘06. I played the album on shuffle, and the first song I listened to was Summertime, a song that played with emotions of love; it instantly became one of my favourite songs. As I kept listening to Summertime ‘06, the deep bass of songs like Norf Norf and Jump Off The Roof, in conjunction with Vince’s rhymes seamlessly and beautifully creates a visual of the underdog story of Vince’s summertime in Long Beach during the year of 2006. My appreciation for Vince does not stop at his Summertime ‘06 album. When I got the chance to see Vince live at the Rocky and Tyler tour, one thing that stood out for me was his energy and ability to control the audience. Even though at the time I was not religiously familiar with much of his material, Vince’s energy had everyone in the audience moving with excitement. Summertime ‘06 does not do Vince’s performance and stage presence justice; the connection Vince creates with the crowd is remarkable. Vince is also more comedic than you could imagine, in between songs he would joke with the crowd and make them laugh, there was never a dull moment in his performance. Vince’s set at Osheaga will be a unique one; the anticipation of Vince’s performance grows with every listen of his songs. Some of my favourite Vince Staples tracks include: Like It Is, 3230, Summertime, Jump Off The Roof, Norf Norf, Street Punks. This year, I will be attending my first music festival, Osheaga, located in Montreal, Quebec. While this festival is not as popular as other more renowned festivals such as Lollapalooza, Made in America and Coachella, I am genuinely excited as in a span of a weekend I will be seeing many of my favourite musicians and artists. My aim in the next few weeks leading to the festival is to highlight some of the artists I will be seeing in anticipation for Osheaga 2016.
Montreal’s own KAYTRANADA is one of the artists slated for a set on the Saturday of Osheaga weekend. KAYTRANADA is a musician, producer and DJ. I came about KAYTRANADA from his work on The Internet’s Girl – a song that captivates you with its smooth composition and love trance lyrics. After enjoying his production on Girl, I later found remixes to Rihanna’s Kiss It Better, Crucial by K-OS and Danny Brown’s Lie4, all which made me further appreciate his abilities as a producer and DJ. His ability to take a song and reinvent it – and make you love it through a different lens - by remixing is amazing. His remixing abilities are top notch; his performance at Osheaga is a set that I am excited to see. KAYTRANADA has recently released his debut album 99.9%, which I enjoyed entirely. KAYTRANADA’s talent can be seen as he caters to a wide range of genres. Gathering artists from R&B, Rap, Jazz and neo soul, KAYTRANADA’s features are from different genres, giving them all a platform to coexist. His versatility and seamless transitions exemplified on most songs is what makes this project stand out for me. Features on 99.9% include: Craig David, AlunaGeorge, Vic Mensa, BadBadNotGood, Anderson .Paak, SYD, and many more. Illustrating his versatility, KAYTRANADA’s production, along with his unique use of percussive instruments, creates a dreamy listen for the audience. A feature that cannot be avoided in discussion of this album: Anderson .Paak on GLOWED UP. Anderson .Paak and KAYTRANADA create a soulful and futuristic track which quickly became one of my favourite songs from 99.9%. What I love about this track is that it is basically two songs in one. Anderson .Paak starts the song with charismatic verses boasting, “lately I’ve been glowed up, paper finally showed up.” Anderson .Paak then transitions to more soulful excerpts, “In the hands of love, just like I wanna be.” GlOWED UP not only illustrates Anderson Paak’s versatility, but KAYTRANADA’s ability to create two different spacey beats filled with synths and drums that seamlessly transitions well together.
One year after all the ghostwriter accusations, tweets and memes, Meek Mill and Drake, to no surprise, still hate – and are going at - each other. Subtle jabs and insults are situated on the majority of Meek and Drake records currently being released indicating that this beef is not going away any time soon. While this feud is still blatant, both artists have approached 2016 with new music and strong ambitions trying to make summer sixteen theirs.
While there are no instances of dedicated songs solely focused on the conflict, Meek and Drake have both released multiple songs that contain a few subtle jabs and verses aimed at each other. It seems as if every song coming out between the two has some sort of remark against the other, and because of this, Meek and Drake appear as if they will continue with this beef for the time being. The constant insults will be something we have to get used to as an audience of Drake, Meek and rap. Drake will constantly boast about how he obliterated Meek last year and Meek will continue to accuse Drake of using ghostwriters. I am not complaining about this at all, their beef was a defining moment in both of their careers and the culture itself; it is a rap beef that escalated to the wax, with two artists going directly at each other – full dedicated songs with no assumptions or hidden messages - something fans of the genre have not seen in years. With the majority of the mainstream music audience believing Meek’s career was over when Drake pranced around his OVO fest stage with memes and an aggressive record in Back to Back, Meek has slowly recovered from his demise and has gradually accumulated himself a handful of wins. Meek has put together a slew of singles and jumped on several remixes that had the rap community buzzing with interest. Meek was featured on Young Thug’s Digits as well as the remix for Fat Joe and Remy Ma’s hit All The Way Up. In addition to this, Meek has been releasing singles like War Pain, Pray For Em, and Trap Vibes as he has fans anticipating the release of his next project Dreamchasers 4. I believe DC4 will be a success if he can captivate the “hood” audience he has always been known to attract. He may never be commercially accepted in the mainstream – because of Drake’s inability to take a loss and Meek’s lack of musical versatility - but if he can continue to find success with the audience that enjoys trap beats and aggressive vocals, he will have a successful summer. Regarding the slew of successes in which Meek has accumulated this year, another surprising victory was his win at the Billboard Music Awards. He has somehow edged Drake, Future, Kendrick Lamar and Dr.Dre for Top Rap Album (which has me confused; TPAB and IYRTITL were the best rap projects of last year). While he may never gain the recognition he deserves on a mainstream basis, all of these wins are starting to change the perception of Meek in the rap community. It is only a matter of time until Meek announces some sort of tour, especially since his house arrest is almost over. Drake, so far in the year, has released his highly anticipated album Views, and is now in the preparation process of his Summer Sixteen tour with Future and opening acts dvsn and Roy Wood$. Drake’s album Views has received a very mixed reception. Even with the ambiguous reaction to his album, Views is breaking records in terms of streaming and is on track to being certified double platinum. In addition to these successes, Drake garnered his first number-one single in the United States and Canada as a lead artist for his single One Dance. His album Views has been regarded as a highly mainstream album filled with cringe worthy lyrics (e.g. key chain go jang-a-lang & got so many chains they call me Chaining Tatum), and has even added fuel to the accusations of Drake being a “culture vulture” with his dancehall influenced tracks such as One Dance, Too Good and Controlla. Even with the success and accusations, Drake has not forgotten or forgiven Meek, songs like Hype, Weston Road Flows and Summer Sixteen illustrate this; and even with audiences labeling Views as being mainstream and basic, Drake has heard the criticism and released a more lyrical track in 4 PM in Calabasas. Drake is making sure we do not forget about his lyrical skill, 4 PM in Calabasas would no doubt be the most lyrical song on Views if it were to be included. Eventually, all of us, especially the rap fans, who chose a side to this beef whether it was favouring Meek Mill or Drake will come to realize that these are two artists that can both be enjoyed simultaneously. Both are releasing quality music and are having success in their own lane. You can be a Drake fan – as I am - and appreciate Meek’s verses of Digits, War Pain and All The Way Up. You can be a Meek fan and still appreciate 4 PM in Calabasas. To disregard their music based on artist loyalty, hate or trends is ignorant, especially regarding how both of these artists are approaching the summer of 2016 aggressively with quality music. If you are a fan of the genre, you have to appreciate what they have both have done so far this year. Summer sixteen might prove to be just as instrumental to their career just as last summer was. |
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