Atlanta rapper KEY is one of the biggest influences in the underground trap music scene and has opened a lot of doors for lots of well-known artists such as Playboi Carti, Post Malone, 21 Savage,and much more. His unique sound, his signature flow, and cadence, as well as his nonchalant demeanour and tone, were heavily essential for the current trap music that is popular today. With his previous work with Atlantarap group Two-9, as well as his various collaborations with prominent acts like ILoveMakonnen, Father,and the A$AP Mob, he is an important staple in the scene. I gravitated to his music on and off, but his latest collaborative project, 777 with producer Kenny Beatsis what made me listen to him more. He brought his ASIAMERICAtour to Torontowith openers Swoosh God, and it was something that I wanted to enjoy and capture this great moment.
Starting was a local Toronto singer by the name of jetset, and he came to the stage with as much support with lots of people in the crowd, when he performed the first two tracks. Although he’s a singer, he managed to infuse his melodic, R&B singing with trap beats and stellar 808-type sounds. He performed a variety of unreleased songs, as well as some old cuts off his previous projects and the crowd was quite amazed by his performance. He then brought a good friend of his, who is also a rapper, by the name of RJto perform an unreleased collaboration and an old song they did together. He made some slight jokes in the crowd about his cast and thought they would only know him for his cast, but he managed to get some new fans off his stellar performance and unique energy for every song.
Up next, Valley Stream, NY-based rapper Swoosh Godstepped up his opening set by dressing in an all-white OVO tracksuit with an OVO-labelled white ski mask, topping it up with Air Jordan Retro 1s.During the beginning of his set, he took off his hoodie and ski mask, and revealed his actual face and demonstrated unique facial expressions for every moment of his set, which was pretty interesting. He warmed up the crowd with unreleased music, as well as his most popular tracks, like Get Out of My Face, Who Ready, Swoosh Me Up, and much more. He had some tracks that were produced by well-known underground producer Mexiko Dro, in which one of them became my favourite tracks that he performed for his set. He brought his stage energy on another level by dancing to some of his tracks, having the high moments with his raging energy on some tracks, and mellowed-out energy on other tracks His sound, infused with the trap beats became something that the crowd enjoyed and they vibed with what he had to offer. In my opinion, his opening set was really good and I look forward to hearing many more tracks from him.
After Swoosh God’s set, KEY’s DJ played a variety of well-known songs, starting from trap music from artists like Young Nudyand Playboi Carti, to UK rap songs from artists like Skeptaand Nafe Smallz. When the DJ stopped playing his mix, an instrumental of one of my favourite KEYtracks popped up, called Demolition 1 + 2, and KEYpopped up and performed that opening track, which got the crowd going and made me excited for what he has to offer. While wearing a BAPEt-shirt with a unique hat and Air Jordan Retro 4s, he had a unique clothing style for his performance and he played a lot of tracks from his collaborative project 777, with him and Kenny Beats, such as Hater, Dig It, Toronto, Kelly Price Freestyle, and much more
The crowd was so astonished by his performance by reciting every lyric, one by one, doing every mosh pit possible, dancing along to the songs, and much more. Knowing that it was an intimate show, he got as much intimate as possible with the fans and made sure everyone had a great time. For me, I’ve been listening to KEY since his past collaborations with Two-9and ILoveMakonnenand seeing him perform on stage for the first time really shows that he will be in the industry as one of rap’s biggest stars in the near future. Every project, every song that you listen to is a masterpiece, from start to finish, and you can never be disappointed. Overall, this first time seeing him was something that I can cling on to the future and can really view that his musical development will be much stronger as it is. KEY will still continue on his tour until November 29th, 2019 at the Knitting Factoryin New York City, New York.
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Jetset
Swoosh God
Key
By: Joshua Habtwold | Exclusively for @Music, Why Not!
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