Don Toliver has proven himself to be one of the most promising and fastest rising Hip-Hop stars today. His much anticipated debut album Heaven or Hell, finally arrived and we couldn’t be anymore excited.
Heaven or Hell serves as the follow up to his 2018 mixtape Donny Womack. Since his 2018 mixtape, the Houston Rapper has gained more mainstream attention due to co-signs from Eminem, The Weeknd, and Travis Scott, who signed Toliver to Cactus Jack Records in August 2018.
Heaven or Hell spans 12 tracks and includes features from Sheck Wes, Offset, Quavo, and Kaash Paige, and boast productions credits from Mike Dean, WondaGurl, and Frank Dukes. The LP includes titles such as “After Party,” “Cardigan,” “Can’t Feel My Lungs,” and previously released “Had Enough” and “No Idea.”
Throughout the LP Toliver takes listeners on a journey of retrofuturistic R&B and psychedelic Cactus Jack Trap. One of the album’s standout tracks is “Euphoria,” which features Travis Scott and Kaash Paige. The melodic hip-hop track will take you on a euphoric trip, that lives up to it’s title.
Toliver will be supporting the Weeknd on his After Hours North American Tour, alongside Sabrina Claudio.
Harry Styles and his touring band stopped by NPR for an intimate Tiny Desk Concert featuring songs from his album Fine Line. The former One Direction member stripped things down in his peaceful and melodious four-song-set, that highlights his intimate songwriting abilities.
Styles, who is wearing a powder blue sweater with a chicken on it, and his band kicked the set off with an acoustic version of his song “Cherry.” Before jumping into his song “Watermelon Sugar,” he gives us some background and explains that the song was written during the tour for his debut album in 2017, during his day off in Nashville.
“It’s probably the longest it’s ever taken me to finish a song,” he went on to explain. “We kind of liked it when we first had it and then I really hated it for a long time and it kind of came back and it seemed to kind of kept coming back into the mix.” The songs title came from the Richard Brautigan book of the same title.
Styles goes on to describe the song as describing the “initial euphoria” that comes along with new love. The feeling and excitement can be felt from the unplugged version’s funky arrangement of a triple-acoustic guitar and angelic backing vocals coming from the band’s drummer, keyboard player, and rhythm guitarist.
Before playing “To Be So Lonely,” Styles introduced his guitarist and collaborator Mitchell Rowland whiling describing how the song was made, including the sad bit about everyone singing along the loudest during the line about him being an “arrogant b—–d.” The song has become a hit on the TikTok app.
The set ends with the song “Adore you,” which Styles says is about a fish. The song is actually similar to his previous songs about those first initial feelings that come with a new relationship.
Styles will begun his tour for “Fine Line” on June 26 at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. Styles is scheduled to perform three back-to-back shows at Madison Square Garden in New York, from July 6th through the 8th.
Thousands of people across the globe have been diagnosed with Coronavirus or COVID-19. As the virus continues to spread, many nations and states have declared states of emergencies, with some even going into lockdown. As the pandemic continues to grow in the US, organizers of large public gatherings are being forced to make a decision on whether or not to cancel or postpone their scheduled events. Major entertainment industries such as broadway, music, and sports have been forced to pull the plug on their events as states have begun to prohibit the gathering of large amounts of people. Governor Cuomo of New York has decided to close all places with a legal occupancy of 500 people or more. Places such as Madison Square Garden, Barclays Center, Avant Gardner, Webster Hall, Brooklyn Steel, Terminal 5 and more, will be closed until further notice.
Yesterday (March 12), was probably one of the heaviest days, as festivals, concerts, and music festivals seemed to be getting cancelled or postponed left and right. All Live Nation and AEG tours have been postponed until further notice. EDC Las Vegas will continue with their plans for May 2020, but officials are monitoring the situation day by day. Festivals such Lollapaloozza, Bonnaroo, Tomorrowland and Governor’s Ball which are all set to take place between June and July have not made comments yet.
It’s truly a sad time for the music world (and the world in general of course) as we are at the brink of festival season. Here is a list of festivals, shows, and tours that have been cancelled or postponed so far (as of the morning of March 13).
Festivals:
Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival: April 10 to 12, April 19 to 19 postponed to Oct. 9 to 11, Oct. 16 to 18
Beyond Wonderland SoCal: March 20 to 21, postponed until June 19 to 20.
South by SouthWest: March 13 to 22 cancelled
Ultra Music Festival: March 20 to 22 cancelled
Tomorrowland Winter: March 14 to 21 cancelled
Bassnectar’s Deja Voom: March 25 to 28 cancelled
Get Lucky Fest: March 13 to 14 cancelled
StageCoach: April 24 to 26, postponed until Oct. 23 to 15.
Big Ears Festival: March 26 to 29 cancelled
Days of Summer Cruise Fest: June 28 to July 1 cancelled
BPM Miami Festival: postponed
Treefort Music Festival: March 25 to 29, postponed until Sept. 23-27
Concerts & Tours:
Billie Eilish, Where Do We Go World Tour: postponed March dates
Blood Orange: cancelled March 2020 North American dates
Maluma, Maluma 11:11 WORLD TOUR 2020: Cancelled remaining European dates.
Kayzo, spring tour: cancelled
Jauz, Dangerous Waters Tour, remaining dates: postponed until further notice
Action Bronson: postponed upcoming tour dates.
Dan + Shay: postponed Spring tour leg.
Bob Dylan: Japan dates postponed until further notice
Iggy Pop, France Tour: postponed until further notice
My Chemical Romance, Japan Tour: postponed until further notice
Rage Against the Machine, first leg of tour: postponed until further notice
Pearl Jam, North American Tour: postponed until further notice
Madonna, Madonna X Tour: cancelled
BTS, Map of the Soul Tour-Seoul: cancelled
Green Day, Asian Tour: postponed until further notice
Zac Brown Band, remains dates: postponed until further notice.
Yes, US dates: cancelled
Rezz, Relentless Beat: cancelled
Ekali, select shows: cancelled
Wilco: postponed until further notice
Carlos Santana, Miraculous 2020 Tour, European leg: cancelled
Pussy Riot: postponed until further notice
The Who, UK and Ireland Tour: postponed until further notice
Courtney Love & Melissa Auf der Maur: postponed
Chris Stapleton: postponed next two weeks of dates
Kendrick Lamar has revealed he has a new project in the works, but it’s not what most fans were expecting. While most of us were hoping for a new album, Lamar has instead shared with us a teaser for his new company pgLang, with frequent collaborator Dave Free.
The Compton rapper made the announcement with a series of post as well as with a 4 minute visual mission statement. The short film is written and directed by Free and stars Lamar, Baby Keem, Yara Shahidi, and Jorja Smith, and features new music from Baby Keem, Florence Welch, and Kamasi Washington. “When you are identified with something your are not, it always leads to suffering and unhappiness,” a distorted voice tells us.
Upon visiting their website, we continue to learn that pgLang is a “service company,” specializing in music, film, television, art, books, and podcasts. Their mission is to deliver “stories that speak to many nations, many races, and many ages.” PgLang is a company comprised of writers, singers, directors, musicians, and producers that are breaking formats when building ideas to make them real.
“We embrace the idea of anarchy and challenges that make us stronger,” the statement continues “pgLang is focused on using our experiences, and nurturing our many collaborators, to build stories that are equally accessible and engaging and then fitting them within the best media.”
That is all Lamar has provided us with so far, but Free further explained that “in this overstimulated time, we are focused on cultivating raw expression from grassroots partnerships.”
On Monday (March 9) Eminem shared the new music video for “Godzilla,” the latest visual from his new album Music to Be Murdered By. The video is directed by Lyrical Lemonade’s Cole Bennett, and is dedicated to the late rapper Juice WRLD, who is featured on the song’s hook.
The video begins with Eminem in a Costco-like warehouse store, where he begins rapping, “I can swallow a bottle of alcohol and I’ll feel like Godzilla.” We then see the rapper beginning to chug a bottle of Godzilla, with his face on the bottle. The drunk rapper then begins to wander around the store clearly hallucinating, and runs into an array of characters some of which are played by himself, before he vomits up a pile of lego chunks.
The rapper then lands on top of a mountain of his entire discography, and raps to the shoppers in the store. He later runs through a parking lot where he is accidentally punched in the face and knocked out by Mike Tyson.
At the hospital, we see his longtime collaborator Dr.Dre playing up to his title in a white lab coat and blue scrubs alongside Eminem who is also playing a doctor. Eminem then spits his last verse before Bennett signs us off with a special tribute to the 21-year-old rapper Juice WRLD.
A black and white video of Juice laughing plays, accompanied by a voiceover from the rapper. “I hope everybody havin’ a good day. I hope everybody accomplished something significant. Even if you didn’t accomplish anything significant, don’t be discouraged. Just aim to accomplish something significant tomorrow and the next day and so on. If anybody is going through anything, I hope and pray you get through it. And just know you do have the strength to get through whatever the f— you going through, no matter what it is.”
Music to be Murder by was released in January, with “Godzilla” being its standout track. Both from Chicago, Bennett and Juice WRLD were close friends. Bennett is best known for his work directing videos for not only Juice WRLD, but Vic Mensa, Chance the Rapper, Famous Dex, Lil Pump, Smokepurpp, Lil Xan, Blueface, Ski Mask the Slump God, Jack Harlow, and more. His most notable video on his Youtube channel is Juice WRLD’s “Lucid Dreams,” which has surpassed 400 million views.
