My final blog post is about an artist I’ve probably seen more than any other. His name is Kendrick Lamar, and he is seen as most as the current king of hip hop. He is.

Kendrick has been killing it since he was first introduced into the rap scene. His debut mixtape, “Section.80,” got him a lot of attention as an up-and-coming rapper to watch. However, when he dropped “Good Kid, M.A.A.D City” only one year later, Kendrick solidified himself as one of the top dawgs of the rap industry (pun intended).

He is so lyrically talented and aware. Everything he raps about has meaning and every flow is just so smooth, unlike a lot of current rap that is circulating in hip-hop today. To see him do what he does best live is a blessing and I’m lucky enough to say that I’ve seen him three different times.

Every time Kendrick raps, there’s not big firework show in the set or a bunch of featured artists in his music. He stands alone in his talent and he shines brighter than anyone else at what he does. If Paul McCartney is a legend, Kendrick Lamar is the G.O.A.T.

Most recently, I saw him during my birthday week back in the early summer. He was touring with his label Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE) as the headliner of a mini-music festival tour featuring all of TDE’s top artists. He was amazing. Being that it was a TDE tour, he actually did bring some of his rap friends on stage, but it felt like you were at a family cook out seeing your cousins cook out because the talented artists of that entertainment group, are as tight as family. It was a little strange because the venue was seated, which is way out of left field for a rap show, but we had amazing seats and could see Kendrick and all the other artists perfectly from our row. It’s insane to think that in 2011, Kendrick Lamar walked the streets of Austin, Texas during the SXSW music fesitval trying to get people to come to his show. And now, only 7 years later, he the most respected voice in young hip-hop today. I only hope that he continues to come back to Texas so that I can see him again and again in the future.

 

Unless you follow all your favorite artists closely on social media, it can be challenging trying to keep up with all their tour dates or find out right away when they announce their ticket sales so that you don’t find out once they’ve already sold out. To help with this issue, there are currently several apps that help you track your favorite artists, but I have found that almost 70% of the time, they have no idea who you’re actually interested in seeing.

Me for example, I use a app called bands in town to help me stay in the know when one of the artists I love decides to go on tour.  But I’ve been burned before. A couple of times, and one more painful than the other, one of my favorite bands went on tour and I never received a notification. In fact, I had no idea the band was on tour until the tickets were sold out. I was extremely disappointed. When I contacted the app to find out why I didn’t get the notification, they let me know I didn’t have any of their music saved on my phone so they weren’t being tracked. To which my reaction was, does anyone save music anymore? Everyone knows that in 2018, streaming is the thing most people do. I thought it was a fluke, but when it happened again, with another artist that I stream regularly I thought, wouldn’t it be nice if these apps could pick up on your listening behavior and suggest a tracking instead of having to use up storage on your phone to make sure you receive the notification?

Some people find cookies to be a huge invasive of privacy, but if something I genuinely need or am interested comes to me instead of me having to go find it, I’m all for it. Therefore, I’ve decided to roll out an app of my own that picks up on your listening trends and after the streaming pattern is picked up more than three times, the app will automatically prompt you to decide if this is an artist you’d wish to track. Of course it will still sync your library through Spotify, but this way, if you’re like most people who’d rather use phone storage for memories than streamable music, this app will go a long way the next time a super obscure artist who never tours rolls into your town. While we’re in the early stages of development, I’ve gone ahead and added an early design of my new app, Tune Tracker.

When it comes to modern hip hop, there aren’t many names bigger than Chance the Rapper. Talented, humble, and innovative, Chance has managed to be one of the most successful rappers in the hip-hop game without being signed to a single label throughout his entire career.

Chance the Rapper’s first mixtape, “10 Day,” dropped in 2012 and it was the result of his ten day suspension from school in his high school years after being caught with drugs on campus. He always had a talent for rapping and would do it often for fun around school, but when he released this mixtape and saw the reaction he was getting from his peers, he decided to pursue rap full-time.

Since then, he began gaining street cred for his rhymes and eventually, people from outside his inner circle began to take notice. Even though throughout his career he has had record label after record label throw contracts and offers his way, Chance insists that he will have the most creative freedom for his music if he is an independent artist. Three Grammys later, I don’t think anyone disagrees with his creative pursuits or with his talent.

Chance raps about everything from his experimenting with drugs, early in his rap career to his new focus: God, family, and miscellaneous things that just make him happy. I’ve been blessed to see him not once, but twice. The second time however, has to be the one I cherish the most because my younger brother, who was then a high school student, adores his music. He knows every song, every Chance the Rapper fact, and wears Chance’s merchandise with pride. So for his 17th birthday, I decided to share my love of live music with him and take him to his first concert to see his favorite rapper.

While the road to see Chance’s performance was a little rocky (the festival we attended ran out water so people fainting like flies and the crowd was sweatier than the typical festival standard), Chance was amazing. His music alone makes you want to dance and waive your hands in the air to his lyrics, but his stage presence only heightens his music. He moves around the stage dancing and jumping and engages everyone, often pointing the mic at the crowd who, naturally, know all the lyrics to his verses. While he no longer participates in his old lifestyle of drugs and partying, he still gifted the crowd with a few songs from his mixtape, “Acid Rap,” which is my brother’s favorite. The show ended with a confetti-filled sky and some fireworks. Needless to say, the next concert my brother attends will have to be amazing because the performance we got to see and the bonding experience for us, as siblings, makes the memory of that show really special.

If you don’t believe me about the dance moves, here’s a clip I took from the night of the show. He was preforming his song “Angels.” A youtube link for some of his older music is also in the youtube link at the top of this video (explicit content included).

 

About two years ago, I was waiting in line to get into a show when I saw a flyer for a band called Beach House. Intrigued, I took a photo of the flyer so that I could look them up when I got home.

The first song I ever listened to was this song called “Zebra.” It’s a very simple song with the same guitar chords throughout the song, but the singer, Victoria Legrand’s raspy voice made the simple chords into a heartbreakingly, beautiful song. Her voice is enchanting, mesmerizing even. So as the evening went on, I heard song after song, and was immediately hooked on their sound.

The year I discovered the band they had actually just stopped in Austin, which was what the flyer I saw in the street was for, so they stopped touring for a really long time. This past summer however, they returned to Austin and preformed at, what I think, is the best venue in the city for intimate music: The Moody Theatre. I bought tickets with my best friend in March and then waited four months for the date to arrive. We were stoked.

Once again, like many of the artists I mention on this blog, they sounded exactly as they do on recorded versions of their music. Just as predicted as well, the mood in the venue was super intimate. The room was pitch black with only their light show to provide any source of illumination. Their light show, by the way, was something unlike I had ever seen. They had weird images in the form of light installations playing in the background, like a pair of eyes that looked around the room or a set of old hands. My favorite was their starry effect. They had a light installation that projected across the room so it looked like you were in space, which makes sense because their music is what people call, Dream Pop. You hear it and feel like you could float away listening to it.

I doubt I’ll have a chance to see them preform again for a while, but I have to say that even though I was in a room full of people, their music, performance, and stage setting made me feel like I was listening to them in my bed with the lights off, with a pair of earphones hanging in sides of my ears.

Check out the starry installation that took my breath away in my post below.

Every ACL there’s always one artist that you cannot believe Austin was able to get as a headliner. Some years, the headliners can be slightly underwhelming, and other years, they are beyond belief. This year ACL Fest outdid themselves when they announced that Paul McCartney, one of the two living members of The Beatles, would be headlining ACL.

Earlier into this blog, I wrote that I’ve made a growing list of artists I’d like to see live one day. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that I would see Paul McCartney in concert, and in Texas for that matter.

Typically, I dedicate part of my blog to provide some background on the artist and to their music style, but Paul McCartney needs no introduction. So I will just jump right in.

Paul McCartney is, for lack of a better word, a legend. At 76 years old, this man jumped on stage in front of hundreds of thousands of people and preformed like he was still in twenty years younger. Drenched in sweat, McCartney’s dedication to preserving his music in a live setting is astounding.

With over a two-hour set, McCartney used his time on stage to preform every Beatles classic that fans were hoping they’d hear, along with some of his own music from his equally successful solo career. Every person in that crowd, or what seemed like could have been all of Zilker Park, knew the words to every single song.

McCartney preformed songs going all the way back to the Please Please Me album. Hearing “Love Me Do,” “Let It Be,” “I’ve Just Seen A Face,” and more in person, by the man who helped pen most of those songs, was an unreal experience. However, it was when he and his band played my favorite Beatles song, “Something,” that I completely lost it. I’m twenty-five. The fact that I can say I’ve seen someone who has shaped the music of so many of today’s artists, someone who even my parents wish they’d be able to one day see, was performing live in front of me was insane.

The most amazing part of the performance, as expected, was when he preformed “Hey Jude.” It was beyond extraordinary to witness people from all walks of life, who likely don’t share the same political, cultural, or religious beliefs, come together (pun intended) to belt this song at the top of their lungs in the middle of a park in Texas. I will forever remember that feeling.

See a glimpse of what I mean in the clip taken by me below.

 

This year at ACL, there were so many artists that I had been itching to see, but no one was more anticipated for me than Janelle Monae.

Janelle Monae is an artist that doesn’t quite fall into one category or genre. Her music is a combination of contemporary R&B, soul, funk, electric music, pop, dance, and hiphop. She really can do it all, but what stands out to me about her as an artist is her refusal to conform to any norms that are expected of her as a young female of color. In fact, all of Monae’s songs champion for the underdogs of the world. Having labeled herself an underdog, she advocates for weirdness as being a strength that makes everyone special. Monae’s frame of mind is that weirdness does not mean being strange, but rather it’s a uniqueness that is actually each person’s own superpower.

When I listened to her latest album, “Dirty Computer,” I was so moved by this idea of diversity and flaws as additional factors of beauty that must be celebrated, along with a lot of girl power vibes in the album, that I knew I had to see her preform this live.

Another reason I’ve been really drawn to seeing Monae in concert is the fact that every single music video she releases is so visually stunning that I knew her concert visuals would be no different.

She exceeded my expectations. In her performance, Monae found a way to incorporate a lot of the art and visuals that you would think would require a movie set or green screen. She has this song called “Pynk,” in which she celebrates the power of womanhood. In the music video, every set costume and most video props and scenes are pink to emphasize the theme and somehow, Monae managed to bring that same attention to detail to the stage. In fact, most of the videos seemed to be recreated on stage and even more impressive than the stage sets, was Monae’s immaculate voice. Unfazed by the unforgiving heat and cardio effort from her dance choreography, she sounded exactly like she does recorded. Out of every artist at this year’s ACL Festival, Monae had to be my favorite performance of this year’s lineup.

If you haven’t listened to her music, I highly recommend checking out her most recent album, Dirty Computer. While all of Monae’s albums are a gift to the ears, this album will make you an inta-fan of the unstoppable force and artistry that is Janelle Monae.

 

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For this post, I’ve decided to take a break on recapping my favorite concert moments to discuss some of the crucial mistakes people make when preparing or lack there of for the Austin City Limits Festival. I’ve included some must-haves for the festival and a few things to avoid as well.

DO: Pack for the heat

Even though the music festival comes to Austin in the fall, it is still Texas and while most locals know to bring sunblock and water bottles, there are so many people at ACL that do not, which makes for a lot of burnt skin and severe dehydration. Every festival-goer knows that at festivals, there is usually alcohol consumption, but more importantly, there’s heat. If not from the beaming, Texas sun, people can become overheated and dehydrated from standing in packed crowds of people, which is why it is so important to pack a reusable water bottle. While you can purchase them at the festival, they are always way overpriced, and at $3 per bottle, the amount you get is not something that will last you an entire music set. When you pack your own, you can refill at their water stations for free and prevent leaving the crowd multiple times to rehydrate.

Don’t: Bring visible liquids into the festival

A big mistake a lot of first-time ACL attendees make is to bring a full water bottle into the festival. Don’t spring for a fancy brand or purchase a case of water bottles to bring into the festival because you will be forced by security to pour it out or bin it at the entrance. Also, don’t think for a second you can put clear alcohol into a water bottle and that you will fool anyone because clear or not, liquids will be thrown in the trash. Another, more expensive, item you’ll likely be asked to throw away is the spray sunscreen, as no aerosol is at all allowed into the festival to prevent danger or accidentally spraying someone in the eyes in the crowd.  Leave it at home and bring the lotion-style sunscreen to protect your skin from the sun.

DO: Tell them germs, “Not today Satan!”

Another item to pack that many people overlook is hand sanitizer. Even as VIP status, you are sharing a dirty, overused porta potty with literally thousands of people. Even if you hold it in all day to refrain from using them, there are so many surfaces from the grass to the picnic tables and more, where people’s germs have been assembling throughout the day to take you down. ACL provides hand sanitation stations near the portable restrooms, but it’s always a safe bet to bring your own. You never know when you sit down to give your legs a break, if there’s a blob of gum or spilt beer fermenting into the ground waiting to graze your hand.

DO: Throw on some shades

Sunglasses are a must. It is never fun when when the sun has reached that annoying point in the sky where it not only blinds you, but obstructs your view from seeing the band you waited at the gates since 11 am to see preform. Plus, they are the perfect accessory for when you’ve also reached the point in the festival where your makeup has officially melted away, but you finally got to the front of the line for the ACL frame to take the perfect, instagram-worthy selfie.

DO: Check the weather

A big mistake that I am guilty of to this day is checking the weather for the weekend in which I’ll be attending the festival. Texas is nothing, if not unpredictable when it comes to the weather so always make sure to check ahead. If rain is on the horizon, it’s always smart to pack a poncho, just in case. Umbrellas are not allowed due to their bulkiness and their pointed tips so your best bet to stay dry and enjoy the show is to coat yourself with a poncho while you watch everyone else run to catch some shelter under the food tents.

DO: Charge it up!

If it’s not on the internet, did it even happen? Don’t let the haters doubt you. Invest in a portable charger. You can get one for as cheap as $10 and it will be a life-saver when Zilker’s terrible cellphone reception has drained your battery right before Paul McCartney goes on stage. Because what are the odds of you ever seeing that again?

Don’t: Be this guy..

One of the newest rules at ACL this year is no backpacks. To limit the wait time for entry upon inspection, ACL is now requiring that festival-goers do not bring any backpacks or oversized purses to the venue, and will not grant them entry if they do not leave the bags at the doors. This includes mini-backpacks as well. While some festival-goers find parking near Zilker Park, where ACL is held, the worst thing would be to pay for an Uber from the opposite side of town, only to be told you have to throw your bag away or take it back home. Play it safe and bring a small to medium-sized bag that will fit all of the essentials listed above, but avoid a bulky bag. If you can fit your overpriced, University Bookstore textbook, you’ve gone too far.

I hope you find this guide useful. Some honorable mentions not listed above, but always helpful are gum, chapstick, and earbuds incase the performers go crazy with their bass. If you’re attending ACL, I hope you’ll keep these tips in mind. If you’re not, check out my next blog posts to see some highlights from` my favorite performers.

If you’ve never attended the festival, I’ve provided a short clip from ACL Fest’s official Youtube channel from 2017 below.

 

 

While I have a deep passion live music, it’s not very often I splurge on seeing an artist more than once. Typically, I make a list of all the artists that I love and would one day want to see and once it happens, I cross them off my list and hope that at some point in the future, I’ll develop the urge to see them again.

There are however, a handful of artists that I will pay to see time and time again, not only because of the quality and my adoration of their music, but because seeing them live elevates their music to a whole new level. One of those artists on my list, is a little band from Kentucky called Cage the Elephant.

Imagine if Mick Jagger accidentally drank from the fountain of youth and was restored back to his twenty-six-year-old self and that is what you’ll find in Cage the Elephant frontman, Matt Shultz. While every member of the band is both talented and entertaining to see preform, Shultz’s on-stage energy and dance moves steal the show every time. From his sparkly shoes to his eccentric, onstage wardrobe, anyone who has seen him preform live can admit they feel as if they’ve bee transported back to the sixties to see The Stones in concert.

I’ve been lucky enough to see them preform twice and each time it has left me with my hands holding onto my face in wonder at how one group can bring so much intensity and spirit into one crowd.

Their music will have you dancing, head banging, and singing at the top of your lungs. It’s very much the carefree feeling of dancing alone in your bedroom, but surrounded by thousands of people who are doing the exact same thing too.

Their genre is a mix between indie and alternative rock, but if you’d like to give them a listen, I’ve provided a youtube link of their song, “Take It Or Leave It,” which is one of my all-time favorites. As always, I’ve provided a little clip of the time I saw them at the Moody Theatre in Austin.

 

 

In my last blog post, I wrote about a very talented, young singer who happens to be one of the freshest voices in the contemporary R&B genre at the moment. However, when it comes to contemporary R&B or even traditional R&B,  no one is killing it quite like Miguel.

Miguel has been blessing us with his smooth, illustrious voice since 2010 and since then, his music has only become more complex and dance evoking with every album. Miguel’s known for making music with extremely sensual content, but there are also several other themes related to love, drugs, and with his most recent album, War & Leisure, he even shares some of his views on the current political climate with his song “Now.”

This album is super different from a lot of his other music. Anyone who has followed his career can see that the songs and lyrics that compose this album are much more serious than any of his previous music, with greater range in content and style. He even gives listeners a taste of his hispanic background with the song “Caramelo Duro,” which also features Columbian-American singer, Kali Uchis.

When the tour was announced, I was very much eager to get my hands on some tickets. It had been announced that the Austin tour would be at Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater, one of my favorite venues in the city. I bought the tickets the morning they went on sale and impatiently waited five months for the concert date to finally arrive. It was beyond my expectations. If you’ve never been to Stubb’s, just imagine a great backyard hidden in the middle of Downtown Austin. What seems like a small stage, transforms into a kaleidoscopic oval that beams into the crowd once the show begins.

Miguel came out to the song “Now,” but before he ascends onto the stage, the song’s music video plays in the background, a powerful short-film portraying Miguel’s view on the current policies in place for undocumented immigrants. Miguel is half Mexican and half African American so this political view is one that he champions for at many of his shows.

From beginning to end, Miguel’s voice sounds just like it would on a vinyl record. Playing songs all the way from his debut, to his most recent album, Miguels voice and dance moves put on an amazing performance. From this blog, I implore that one of two things happen in your life: That you get to see Miguel live and/ or that you experience a live performance at Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater. If you’re smart, you’ll do both.

To watch Miguel’s video for “Now,” click the Youtube video at the top of the blog. I shared a video of one of my favorite songs preformed by Miguel as well for your enjoyment.

 

 

When I look back on all of the bold, talented women I’ve been lucky enough to see live, one with some of the most relatable music, who I currently believe best encapsulates the insecurities, uncertainty, and messy relationships that your twenties entail, is SZA, an incredibly talented songwriter and contemporary R&B singer who I got to see preform last October.

I’ve been listening to SZA for a few years now and while all of her songs are incredible, it’s her sophomore album, CTRL, that I identify most with. In CTRL, SZA discusses everything from the feeling of women comparing themselves to other women, the insecurities that derive from bad experiences with men and with love, struggling to find self-love, and not having the slightest idea on the direction in which your life is going. In a sense, the album explores the feeling of not having control over one’s own life, something I believe every twenty-something year old has felt before.

When this album came out, SZA already had a very loyal, but humbling fan base. However, by the time her tour was announced, people were obsessed with her and with her music. Even Beyonce was a fan. The Austin tour stop sold out within thirty minutes. So immense was the demand to her shows, that I actually drove one hour south, to San Antonio, to see her preform and paid double the original ticket price off some third party website.

Needless to say, she was amazing. Even though SZA sings heavily about her insecurities, she preforms with endless confidence, making the stage all her own. As it turns out, her last tour drew such small crowds that her label didn’t want to spring for another large venue. During her set, she described that the first time she came to San Antonio. There were no more than twenty people in the crowd to watch her preform. Even if it was lack in confidence in the turnout that brought her to such a small venue, I felt really lucky because the performance felt extremely intimate and every single person in the room knew all the words to every song. It was a very special moment for me, knowing that today, SZA is selling out arenas, and seeing her preform live, in such private way, is something I’ll probably never experience again.

If you haven’t heard her music, I’ve provided a youtube link to her song, “20 Something,” which is the closing track off of her album CTRL, at the top of this blog post. I also shared a short clip of her performance below, shot by yours truly!