Author: Kevin Bourne

Trap artists often get flack for following a consistent formula- dreads, drug talk, similar delivery, similar production. And a lot of them lack stage presence. They tend to focus their crowd interraction around some chant that they repeat throughout their show when they don’t know what to say. “Sremm Life!”, “Mi-go!” So when it comes to Rae Sremmurd it was important to find out what made them different. What makes them stars? What makes them special? What makes them unique? What makes them real artists and performers? They started their performance with No Type and No Flex Zone (which meant the…

Throughout all the local hip-hop shows at Bluesfest one thing was consistent- Rita Carter. She was the unofficial cheerleader for local acts. I saw her at all but one show and that was only because her show was happening immediately after. At one of the shows I was introduced to Aspects, her sometimes collaborator who she would be performing with at Bluesfest. With his baseball cap low over his eyes, his many tattoos, and his name, I totally profiled him and assumed he was just a rapper. He ended up being a lot more. Fast forward to their show at…

In the intro to her show, she was described as a woman of extremes. I only saw one side of her on Saturday night- intense. We were also told she just came from busking on the streets in Florida. If that’s true, she earns some serious cool points. She came out wearing a green John Deere hat that completely covered her face until well into her first song, which made just seeing her face an event let alone hearing her music. This was her first time on the road with her own band so even if you had seen her…

Yes, our headline is very cheesy, but there’s so much to love about Ottawa biggest musical success story right now- Elijah Woods x Jamie Fine. As we all know, earlier this year they appeared on CTV’s The Launch and won with their rendition of Ain’t Easy, and the rest is history. I was first introduced to Elijah Woods x Jamie Fine almost a year ago. I was riding in a car with Brian Tong, who has a reputation for knowing what’s hot in Ottawa. He played me some music from local artists who were killing it on Soundcloud yet flying…

One thing I learned at Bluesfest 2018 is some artists are better suited to small intimate venues and others are better suited to the big stage. Local rapper Black Iri$h is for the big stage. I had the opportunity to see Black Iri$h and RBLx perform at Marvest last year and liked what I saw.  Aside from making good music, they were also good performers. That was the beginning of my conversion from being only a boom bap and bars guy to being open to the new wave of hip-hop. Even though I went to his Marvest show, I have…

Thursday night at Bluesfest was for the 80’s and 90’s kids. I gathered as much from the intro of hip-hop group Naughty By Nature. The show opened with a medley of classic songs, including We Will Rock You, before going into probably Naughty By Nature’s second biggest hit of their career, OPP. DJ Kay Gee modernized it a little ad-libbing, “Slide up in the DM’s. Slide up in the DM’s”. Similar to other Bluesfest shows, I was surprised they started with such a big hit right out the gate. After 27 years in the game, Treach and Vin Rock decided to…

For some people, Foo Fighters were the big draw on Tuesday night at Bluesfest, but for others the main event was happening over on the Black Sheep stage. As I said in my Bluesfest preview, I didn’t know too much about Machine Gun Kelly, but I had a feeling he would be a great performer, and he was. The show started with what sounded like monks chanting over an epic instrumental. Then he entered with what looked like a race car driver suit with blue and yellow reflective strips. Not exactly the badass I was expecting. The opening songs were Wild…

“Hey, I’m the voice inside your head”. That’s how Roland Prince’s show started. It was a bit weird, but that would end up being a theme throughout his show. I just got introduced to Roland Prince’s music last week and I like what I hear so far. While Prince embraces being weird, perhaps a better word is “unique”. He has a pretty unique sound and that uniqueness was evident at Bluesfest. He has his own look and sound which is impressive for an up and coming artist. As soon as he came out in some DIY looking overalls I thought,…

Aside from Ghostface Killah, the other show I was really looking forward to taking in at Bluesfest 2018 was Ottawa rap group Tapas, featuring rappers Cheko Salaam and G. Grand, and producer and Beat Battle champion Jeepz. G. Grand happens to be one of my favourite rappers, no “MC’s”, so I was especially looking forward to this show. You may ask, “Why the name ‘Tapas’?” A quick glance at their website offers an explanation- “small savoury sonic dishes”. That’s exactly what they served up. With DJ So Nice of the hip-hop duo Buck-N-Nice behind the turntables, they came right out…

I don’t have any data to back this up, but Ottawa has to have one of the most diverse music scenes in North America with Anglophone, Francophone and Indigenous artists. A reflection of that is none other than Ojibwe rapper Cody Coyote. His appearance at Bluesfest 2018 was my second time seeing him perform live so I had an idea of what to expect, but the first time was at a Ashes to Rubies showcase so it wasn’t a full set. The show started with some sort of flute instrumental with visuals of colonialism, including soldiers gunning down First Nations people,…

The first non-hip hop show that I took in at RBC Bluesfest 2018 was Shawn Mendes. Don’t judge me for being open-minded. I’ve watched a few Shawn Mendes interviews earlier in the week so I was intrigued by how he would be as a live performer. I immediately felt out of place. I imagined people saying to themselves, “What is this black guy doing at a Shawn Mendes concert by himself?” Looking around, I was honestly expecting see a lot more women than men, but the crowd was mixed, which means the men in attendance were either with their significant…

On a personal level, the show I was looking forward to the most at Bluesfest 2018 was Ghostface Killah. As I mentioned in my Bluesfest preview, I’ve been a Wutang fan since 36 Chambers came out in 1993. Between my sister and I, we pretty much had every group and solo project on cassette (CDs still weren’t that popular). I’ve seen some hip-hop legends perform in Ottawa, from Nas at Bluesfest 2015 to Smif-N-Wessun at last year’s edition of House of Paint, and what always shocks me is that the crowds are so young, and to be honest, so white.…