Photo By: Julia Schur

Exhausted. That’s what 20 year-old, rap-phenom Chancelor Bennett, aka Chance The Rapper, should be by now. It all started when he dropped the video for his single “Juice”  on January 31st. A few short months later, Chance dropped Acid Rap, a mixtape that’s both critically adored and wildly popular in the hip-hop blogosphere and beyond. As you probably know, Acid Rap propelled Chance into space. This summer he toured the world and opened with some of rap’s biggest names, from Eminem to Macklemore to Kendrick Lamar to Odd Future; recorded songs with both megastars (‘You Song’ on Lil Wayne’s Dedication 5’ and up-and-comers (‘Wendy N’ Becky’ with Joey BadA$$); and went on his own country-wide tour, the Social Experiment Tour, which spanned 30 cities in just under 2 months – it just ended on December 7th.

Last Monday night, on one of his final dates of the tour, Chance arrived at Oberlin College – a small liberal college, home to just under 3,000 students, located 35 minutes west of Cleveland, Ohio – and took the stage at the Dionysus Disco. The ‘Sco is in the basement of Oberlin’s Student Union and is fully equipped with a half-bar, slightly usable restrooms, a stage fit for a children’s church choir, and capacity for 250-300 uncomfortable people. In other words, it’s not exactly a place you’d expect the next big thing in hip-hop to be performing at. You’d expect Chance to at least be in Cleveland, possibly at the House of Blues, or maybe even the Grog Shop or Peabody’s. But no, sitting in a not-so-hidden parking lot right next door to ‘Sco was Chance‘s tour “bus,” a mini-van with “Acid Rap” detailed into the sides.  But though his bus wasn’t a marvel, he’d nonetheless been selling out shows in nearly every city he’s been to; everyone – hip-hop heads, hipsters,  word nerds, smokers, groupies, and generally curious individuals – has been clamoring to see this kid from the Windy City.

Accordingly, here he was, performing in the basement of a liberal arts college’s student center, in Ohio, early in December, as his first country-wide headlining tour was winding down. He didn’t have to leave his heart on the stage, he didn’t have to perform like this was his first show, he didn’t have to bring those Michael Jackson-esque dance moves that he’s been busting for the last six months, and he didn’t have to give not one, but two encore performances. He should’ve been tired, he should’ve been beaten down by the road, the studio and the shows. He should have been exhausted. Alas, somehow he was not.

When you play Acid Rap through your car speakers, or in your headphones, the tape is beautiful and bloated. The cover art is a cartoonish picture of Chance, lost in the woods, surrounded by his trippy world, and that’s exactly how the tape plays out. You never fully know where he’s going, but it’s worth the ride. The mixtape oscillates between stratospheric highs and painfully grounded lows. In a live setting, these dynamics are exploded even further. The Chicago acid jazz that influenced the mixtape is as important to the live show as Chance is. Chance frequently gave the floor to the instrumentation as often as he did himself, and the jazz vibe of the show made the emotional intimacy overwhelming. The complexity of Chance‘s songs really plays out a bit more raw in person. This tape is rejuvenating on record, but in a live setting, it’s actually kind of exhausting. Well, it was for the crowd. Chance himself? He just kept on going.

People used to – and still do – complain about seeing Lauryn Hill live because she would take her powerful, soulful songs and turn them into electro-future tracks. Fans wanted the hits, and they weren’t getting them – at least not the way they sound on her album. Chance flips the Lauryn approach on it’s head; where Hill changed her songs, and removed much of what made them soulful, Chance doubles down and super-sizes the soul. There’s trumpet solos by Nico Segal, there’s James Brown-meets-Footwork dance breaks, and on more than one occasion it felt like Chance was going to either breakdown crying or pass out on the spot. Live instrumentation has a way of doing that, especially when soul is involved. In fact, this set was soulful that it transformed the ‘Sco from a basement at a small liberal arts school to a speakeasy playing the latest and coolest jazz. On that stage, Chance wasn’t the latest incarnation of Kanye or Andre. Nah. Chance was the reincarnation Howlin’ Wolf, cooing at the moon, controlling the crowd, feeling every note, every word.

It felt unfair to have this boiling pot of talent trapped in a basement with a  handful of fans jumping and screaming every word to every song, but at the same time it felt so right. When he finished that show, and the tour, it felt like things were winding down for the young kid from Chicago. It felt like he was just finishing one of the longest, most successful, and hardest working years in hip-hop. It was as if he had just finished a marathon. And at the end of the night, as he closed the show with “Chain Smoker,” we felt like that was the moment he would finally give in. We thought the lights would go down, the curtain would fall and he would collapse, exhausted. Instead,  it felt like Chance the Rapper was just getting started.

The post Howlin’ Wolf is Back: A Concert Review and Reflection on Chance The Rapper’s Marathon Year appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

Photograph by Julia Schur

Neon lights are flashing, Chance’s face is projected onto the walls, and an army of enthusiastic twenty year olds are smiling, eagerly waiting for Chance to make his grand entrance: Welcome to the Social Experiment Tour.

Chance has been blowing up ever since the release of his second mixtape, Acid Rap. He recently toured with some of the greatest names in hip-hop, including Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Macklemore and Mac Miller. Chance shocke the world when Acid Rap cracked the Heatseekers Albums chart. The surprising part? Acid Rap was never for sale. Yes, Chance The Rapper is the one an only man able to sell CDs right now without even trying!

On October 29^th and 30^th the Chance performed three sold out shows on the iconic SOBs stage. After an hour of waiting…

… The lights dimmed down, and Chance bolted onto the stage while “Good Ass Intro” (Acid Rap‘s opening track) started playing. After performing some of his biggest hits, Chance abruptly left the stage. The audience was confused. “You got to be kidding me,” said an audience member. Little did we know, “The Social Experiment” was just beginning. Donnie Trumpet, a multi-talented musician, part of Chance’s crew, arrived on stage along with a keyboard player and a drummer. The band gave a new twist to Chance’s music, playing a particularly memorable version of “Paranoia.” The track reached new heights of perfection: it was crisp, high in emotion and well rehearsed.

Critics have praised Chance’s show for being “full of energy” a “new mile-stone in Chance’s career, ” and while his first stop in New York certainly was both of those things, Chance was still not a hundred percent successful in connecting with his audience. His charismatic personality did not shine through during his set as much as we would have hoped. Chance is an undeniably talented artist, and a real-life cartoon, but only as long as the music is playing. The second the music stopped playing, he only managed to mumble a few variations of “I love you guys thanks for coming,” against his tightly held mic. Even though we appreciate his kind words, his sheepish tone was not convincing. With time, Chance will become more comfortable with conversing with his audience.

If you want to have all the latest updates about Chance The Rapper and his tour, visit his website here.

The post Photo Recap: Chance The Rapper Live – A Real Acid Trip appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

All Photographs by Loni Schick

RESPECT.‘s Peter Marrack caught up with Joe Budden during a recent show at The Opera House in downtown Toronto.

Read what transpired after the jump.

“You enjoying Toronto?” I asked, stepping over Joe’s shiny black Air Force Ones to have a seat on a second sofa. Besides Joe and Loni, there were only two other people in the dressing room, Joe’s video guru and what appeared to be the guru’s girlfriend. Joe rubbed his hands against his face, responding to my greeting with an unenthusiastic, “Yeah, as much as I can.” Then he mumbled something about keeping the fans waiting, when the room went silent. Joe appeared grumpy, maybe even ill, so Loni and I waited until Crystal returned down the stairs to make a peep. Crystal soon came in with a wad of American twenties, rifling through them to make sure the amount was right. It was, so she was able to usher Loni and I up a sister flight of stairs, which led to the stage. “You guys are the only two who’ll have access here,” she added. “It’s less crowded on this side.” Crystal guided us up along the narrow stairwell, until we came out onto the hard wood surface of the stage. Joe’s DJ had already set up shop, perched on top of his carpeted platform, turntables and MacBook piled onto each other on the fold-up table, banner draped over its ends. “Tell your photographer she can move wherever she wants,” Crystal shouted into my ear, as the fans had gotten increasingly rambunctious during the two hours they had waited for Joe to seal the deal on his Chicken con Asparagus back at the hotel. All jokes aside though, the crowd’s frustration probably stemmed more from the event’s lackluster promotion and organization than it did from Joe’s tardiness… because when the G finally arrived, a riptide of wild cries rose above the sea of blue and white ball caps, which characterize any T.O. crowd.

Up on stage, Joe, adorning black-on-black True Religions, studded belt, and an oversized diamond Rolex, weaved together a laid-back and rather spontaneous performance, which included records, “Pump It Up,” “Dear Diary,” “Ten Minutes,” “Pray For Them,” “Follow My Lead,” “Ordinary Love Sh*t pt. 3” and a couple of others. Initially, Joe took some time to warm up, however, by the halfway mark he had shed the heavy winter sweater, and stripped down to his wife-beater and bare back of tattoos. During one especially long intermission – after all, the show had to extend an extra hour or so because of Daylight Savings Time – Joe even challenged three members of the crowd to join him up on stage to try and complete any 8 bars of a song he picked for them. Joe had evidently devised a plan to weed out all would-be fans, who have become increasingly prevalent since Shady 2.0’s domineering performance at the BET Cypher, while at the same time distributing prizes to anyone skilled enough to conquer his game. In the end, none of the drunken, marijuana-toking jokers could complete Joe’s special challenge, leaving my bruh from New Jersey bewildered as to “why anyone would ever put themselves through that type of embarrassment?” Joe would later hypothesize, “They don’t care a room of people is out there watching. They on stage with Joe Budden.” Joe eventually wrapped things up at The Opera House with an extended meet and greet session right down in front of the stage, where he signed autographs and posed for pictures with fans who were patient enough to stick around and fight their way to the head of the crowd.

All biases aside, the most enthralling moment of the evening had to be when Joe performed a record which he understandably dubs his “Purple Rain.” While performing this particular record, the lights were dimmed down to a purple haze (no pun intended, Joe’s not a weed rapper), the fog machines strenuously milking grey clouds, while Joe raised his commanding croak over the drawling bassline of his incognito track. Looking out from the DJ’s booth at Joe, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Stanley Kubrick’s masterful film, A Clockwork Orange and its “rape” scene. Not that Joe was defiling any young flower up on stage or anything, a la Akon or Kubrick’s ruffians, however, there was still some of that apocalyptic vibe present. I mean, here’s this 30 year old rapper exposing the most obscure crevices of his soul, bearing his self naked… and for who? A hundred fans who’ve never listened to his music before he appeared on national TV three weeks prior? For a dilapidated old landmark (Toronto’s The Opera House) in dire need of a new sound system and dressing room renovations? For me, personally, Joe’s Saturday night performance at The Opera House did not necessarily represent the apocalypse of hip-hop, as we know it. After all, Joe’s living well, lodging at nice hotels, doing what he loves and stacking cash. Nevertheless, what Saturday night’s show did represent is the absolute Armageddon of an extinct generation of concert promoters and fans. Hip-hop music is just now broaching its second generation in Toronto, which means young promoters and fans alike need to put in the extra hours to improve their craft. As do our writers, if we ever hope to sell out a Joe Budden show in the future.

After the show, while Joe continued to lounge around stage-front, tidying up pictures with the last of his fans, Crystal came up behind me backstage. She asked if I still wanted our interview. “With Joe?” I asked, slightly confused. Crystal nodded. So, ten minutes later, as Joe pounded down the narrow steps of The Opera House and entered into the dungeon, crowding between SLR cameras, tripods, New Era fitted’s, and groupies with bad haircuts, all the dude could voice between cigarette puffs was, “Okay, what’s this one interview I need to do?” That’s when I raised my finger, imperiously, and said, “Me.”

You dealt with the Toronto crowd pretty well. Obviously you’ve got quite a few new fans from the Cypher.

Clearly.

A young crowd, right?

It definitely was a different crowd. I could tell there were a lot of supporters out there, along with a lot of new faces and people who may not have been so familiar with me. That’s always a good chance when you get to perform in front of those type of people. The crowd was cool though.

But do you mind that, when you have new fans who may not know the lyrics?

No, no, my shows, no matter how big the crowd is, they are normally very intimate, shows where you really want to be as personable as you can with them, which is why after the show I stick around. I take pictures and just kick it with them. A lot of the fans have seen the show on a different stage somewhere else. They travel to see it, so you get familiar with them after a while.

I wanted to ask you about the Cypher, because you have ten minute songs, eight minute songs, where you just rap, and then you hear about rappers doing like thirty takes at the Cypher to do like sixteen bars or something. Did you witness any of this?

No, I didn’t witness that. Skillz put that shit out there. I don’t know why Skillz did that. Our Cypher was filmed in Detroit. It was the only Cypher that was filmed out of New York, and it was just us. It was just us, and we all had written our shit maybe a few days prior to- But we’re all very professional, so we knock it down. We did a few takes just so they could get some different angles, but I didn’t witness any of the stuff Skillz was talking about. I don’t think Skillz should have put that out there though. That’s sacred. It’s sacred information. What happens at the Cypher stays at the Cypher. I know the last time I did the Cypher in 2009, I had wrote my shit the night before, maybe 3 or 4 in the morning, so it may have taken me a little while- I don’t think it’s for the fans to know. Skillz is the homie but I don’t think he should have put that out there.

I loved your Cypher. It was great.

Thank you.

It kind of reminded me of the style, you guys rapping fast, well, you were pretty laid-back, which I like. I think that caught a lot of people’s attention. But you have records like “Hard White (Remix)”, where you rap fast. I couldn’t even get the correct lyrics for the second half of the verse. What are you saying there?

In the “Hard White (Remix)”. “I roll that window down and start dumpin, pull up on whatever block that ya’ll on, pills got a nigga walkin around doing stupid shit, my definition of an oxymoron, that ain’t never stop me from keeping a bad one, I would tell niggas again but they heard the story, furthermore he got a couple I ain’t bust but there’s no need to rush they reserved it for me, see I’m all about fam I don’t fuck with the rest, goons that’ll squeeze till a couple is left, the squad’s a facade, it’s all smoke and mirrors, yelling ‘payback’… See I’m a grown adult, so whether that shit you say, you don’t reciprocate love and respect you get plugged, you will need doctors to cover your holes… ya’ll probably didn’t hear me, stand on a couch… breaking any bottle that’s near me, so real I don’t need a hollow to prepare me, I’m the first one in the group to catch a body…” That was the last fast line. But some I’m working on just tinkering around with different things. Any time I’m rapping with Slaughterhouse, they normally like to pick beats where you get to play around with different flows, different cadences.

Royce is altering his voice a lot which is cool.

I think all of us are just tinkering around with different things, just trying to improve, trying to be different.

You rapped about pills and the oxymoron line. You notice now a lot more rappers are talking about different drugs than just weed, talking about ecstasy, MDMA. Do you think they need to be talking about this kind of stuff, because lots of kids are going out and doing that stuff?

Well, no, I’ve never been one to think that rappers should censor what they say because they’re role models. At the end of the day, people need to use their own discretion, about what they intake inside of their bodies. It’s the same thing with going out and watching a movie. You go out and watch a movie, I don’t expect you to leave the movie and go shoot up everybody that you see. At the end of the day, it’s all entertainment.

Right. Your show is a performance too. When you were starting out with rap, were you trying to brand yourself a certain way? How much of what we see on stage is really you, or did you kind of become what you embody on stage?

The majority of my stuff is really me, only because the majority of the music is really me, and coming from real-life experience, something I’m writing about from a very genuine place. I’m probably in the minority as far as that goes. There certainly aren’t too many artists who can say that. It’s pretty much me when you come to a Joe Budden show.

I don’t mean any disrespect, but you have a pretty nasal voice. A lot of rappers have what some people might call abnormal voices, compared to everyone else, and that’s why they’re so good, like Prodigy, Rick Ross, they command the beat. I wondered if this was something you maybe got picked on about as a child, but then it became your money-maker down the road?

My voice coming up was very, very, very squeaky, in my earlier ages, in my earlier years. Once I hit sixteen or seventeen my voice just kind of skyrocketed somewhere else. But rappers do very often tinker with their rap voice. You try different things and experiment with different things, but this is just my shit.

I like your hat tonight. I noticed you have a big hat collection. You have a couple Jays hats.

I have billions of fitted’s. Hockey fitted’s-

You have a Leafs hat?

Yeah.

Are you contesting with Drumma Boy? He told me no one could compete with him.

[laughs] I hadn’t even heard of his collection. I hadn’t really heard about anyone else’s hat collection. How many did he say he had?

He didn’t put a number out there. What would you approximate though?

I easily have over a thousand, easily. I’ve got closets strictly for hats. I’ve got a shelf case strictly for hats. I easily have over a thousand. I don’t think Drumma Boy wants to see me and my hat collection.

You said before you don’t sleep a lot. Has that changed?

No, I don’t really sleep very often, especially now when there are so many projects to do. We’re working on a Slaughterhouse project, wrapping that up. I’m wrapping up my solo project, and then you still in the meantime need to release the music so the fans are content. So there’s really not too much time to sleep.

But would you advocate that for someone else?

No, no, the body needs sleep to function properly. And even when I notice I’m not functioning properly, I shut everything down and go get some sleep.

But when you’re rapping, do you find lack of sleep affects your work?

I mean, the adrenaline rush compensates for the lack of sleep.

Have you seen the movie Exit Through The Gift Shop?

No.

There’s a guy named Mr. Brainwash in the movie. He’s a street graffiti artist. He recorded his whole life, and was somewhat delusional, had lofty dreams. And you said in a song once, rap is so basic, you could accomplish so much more, because you’re a smart guy. Do you think you need a special confidence to achieve such things, like Mohammed Ali believed he was the crown prince of everything, not just in boxing?

No, I definitely think that’s a personality thing. Confidence is not something that is so common in people, I’m noticing. When you have those people who feel like that, they really are special people. It really is an attitude not everyone can just acquire. You have it or you don’t have it.

The post Concert Review & Exclusive Interview: Joe Budden In Toronto appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

RESPECT. managed to sneak a member of press into The Weeknd‘s second solo performance, discounting OVO Fest, this past Saturday at the Guelph Concert Theater in Ontario. Since the event was once again no press and no cameras, we had to make due with words and one unbiased testimony.

Read the complete review after the jump.

The Weeknd may be a lot of things, but all we know for sure is that he’s 1) one-of-a-kind, and 2) a monstrous tease.

As I entered the Guelph Concert Theater in downtown Guelph, a small University town in rural Ontario, the first thing my friend noticed was the decor. “Look around,” she said. “This place used to be a goddamn church.” It was true. The decor consisted of old wood paneling, brown carpets, and a merchandise booth that could have substituted for an old school confessional. Not only was the locale provocative (at least mildly ironic, considering The Weeknd’s lurid subject matter), but the show was converted at the last minute from 19+ to all-ages, so all the underage kiddies with fake IDs could secure a spot on the segregated balcony and enjoy their fair share of melodic drug references and tales of hard sex. The opening act turned out to be a local grunge band from Toronto, who did very little to tickle the crowd, who’s only concern was whether the three security guards (who appeared similar to XO crew members) intended on enforcing the “No Smoking” signs plastered up on stage. Heck, was this all some sort of elaborate April Fool’s gimmick in early October? I got my answer the moment The Weeknd spun onto the stage doing a version of Lil B’s cooking dance along with his accompanying band, who could have passed for The Roots on a slow night on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. After performing an amped up version of “High For This”, The Weeknd, dressed in a Yankees warmup, XO cap, blue chinos sagging overtop Polo boxers, yanked two of the “No Smoking” posters off the stage and tore them into pieces, all the while giggling maniacally at his posse. Tesfaye then chugged a bottle of Hennessy straight from the bottle, and slowly ran his fingers beneath his nose for a final drug reference.

As you may have already suspected, there were no label execs or A&R fixers in attendance at Guelph, no witnesses to Tesfaye’s ‘monstrosity’ of a sophomore performance, and the XO boys seemed to like it better that way. Who said The Weeknd couldn’t sing in front of an audience? Over the course of an hour, Tesfaye blasted through a sufficiently-amped setlist, which included, “High For This,” “Life Of The Party,” “The Morning,” “The Party & The After Party,” “What You Need,” “Lonely Star,” “Wicked Games,” “The Birds Part 1” and “The Birds Part 2” among others. However, the standout of the evening had to be, “House of Balloons/Glass Table Girls,” during which the crowd got up on their toes, bouncing and chanting “this is a happy house, we’re happy here, in a happy house, oh this is fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun…” before the beat oozed into a bass-heavy dubstep number, over which Tesfaye half melodizes and half flows. “House of Balloons/Glasses Table Girls” is clearly not a hip-hop record, yet neither is it R&B, or dance/electro. The same goes for the majority of The Weeknd’s cuts, which are often too droned out to be hip-hop, and too hard to be traditional R&B. The Weeknd is trying to brand his own genre, which consists of hard-hitting kicks, vicious basslines, spine-tingling guitar, amidst cries of falsetto.

The Weeknd closed Saturday’s sold out show with an ear splitting performance of “The Zone”, rather fittingly, since a screen of kush smoke had accumulated under the high ceilings. As the various band members jammed to their cathartic conclusion, Tesfaye displaying all his molars as he hit those final high notes, a completely different vibe swept over the crowd. No doubt they anticipated Drake to emerge from the dark curtains backstage to perform his verse on “The Zone”. When he didn’t, everyone stood there on the floor not sure whether to go or stick around. After all, The Weeknd had whispered into the mic before the start of the song, “I’ve got another surprise for you.” The dude knew exactly what he was doing, and it worked, well, almost. He teased fans to the point where they actually considered going home to purchase tickets for Sunday night’s performance in London, Ontario, the second of two back-to-back shows in one sublime “Weeknd.”

The post Concert Review: The Weeknd @ Guelph Concert Theater appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.