After announcing he will be a part of Coachella this year, Smino put out the dates for his “Smino’s Hoopti Tour” in support of his 2018 album Noir.  I am beyond excited for this tour. I’ve seen Smino abut four or five times and I love it each. Such a great, soulful, fun show. Check out some pics I’ve done at his show here.

Presale starts now . Where we meetin at ? (Passcode: WD40) #HooptiTour https://t.co/uHrYdXQmO9 pic.twitter.com/RnwnlSwleq

— Smi (@smino) January 15, 2019

You can get tickets here. The pre sale code is WD40.

Smino 2019 Tour Dates:
03/16 – Manchester, UK @ Academy 3
03/19 – London, UK @ Brixton Electric
03/23 – Chicago, IL @ House of Blues
03/27 – Madison, WI @ Majestic Theater
03/28 – Minneapolis, MN @ Varsity Theater
03/30 – Lawrence, KS @ The Granada Theater
04/01 – Denver, CO @ Summit Music Hall
04/02 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Complex
04/04 – Seattle, WA @ Showbox
04/05 – Vancouver, BC @ Vogue Theater
04/09 – San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore
04/10 – Santa Cruz, CA @ The Catalyst
04/13 – Indio, CA @ Coachella Music Festival
04/20 – Indio, CA @ Coachella Music Festival
04/22 – Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom
04/23 – Albuquerque, NM @ Launchpad
04/25 – Dallas, TX @ Trees
04/26 – Austin, TX @ Emo’s
04/29 – Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live
04/30 – New Orleans, LA @ House of Blues
05/02 – Nashville, TN @ The Cannery
05/03 – Atlanta, GA @ Buckhead
05/04 – Tampa, FL @ Orpheum
05/06 – Charlotte, NC @ The Underground
05/07 – Silver Spring, MD @ The Fillmore
05/09 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel
05/10 – New York, NY @ Irving Plaza
05/11 – Philadelphia, PA @ The TLA
05/13 – Boston, MA @ Paradise
05/14 – Montreal, QC @ L’Astral
05/16 – Toronto, ON @ The Phoenix
05/17 – Detroit, MI @ St. Andrews Hall

2019 just started and festival line ups are already being released. Here is who I would see each day.

Friday:

Childish Gambino, Anderson .Paak, Ella Mai, Jaden Smith, dvsn, Janelle Monae

Saturday:

Solange, Kid Cudi, Wiz Khalifa, Smino, SiR, Idris Elba

Sunday: 

Ariana Grande, Khalid, Zedd, Bad Bunny, YG, Playboi Carti, H.E.R., Blood Orange, Pusha T, SOB X RBE

Seeing the first lineup for festival season is always surprising because people haven’t released new music yet and you haven’t seen who is on the festival circuit yet. So I’m hoping a lot of these artists release new music and albums to play at these festivals. Its interesting to see Ariana Grande on here; there isn’t usually that many pure pop acts on here, and its great to see another woman headliner. Coachella also has a special connection to Ariana Grande because that is where she did a surprise performance of “No Tears Left To Cry” for the first time.

Check up the full lineup below. You can buy tickets starting Jan 4 here. Prices start at $429 for a weekend pass.

Imagine taking one of the hottest rapper’s track from one of the best selling albums of 2018 and making it into a moody, indie song? That’s what Morgan Saint did with Cardi B’s “Thru Your Phone,” the closing track on her Invasion of Privacy album.  Saint’s version was named one of 2018 best covers by MarieClaire.com. And just like Cardi made a name for herself, so has Saint. While she has been compared to the likes of Lorde and Halsey, she is defining her own sound with her EP ALIEN. She is also currently on tour opening for lovelytheband.

Check her out this weekend at Lincoln Hall in Chicago and click here for more tour dates. You can also listen to “Thru Your Phone” and her EP Alien below.

Off the release of their second album, Morning After and their own headlining tour earlier this year, dvsn is now on the road with Miguel for The Ascension Tour. Both of their brands of R&B mix well together, so it was a perfect match for tour mates.

First up was dvsn. While dvsn is made up of producer Nineteen85 and singer Daniel Daley, Nineteen85 was behind the soundboard making sure the sound was orchestrated beautifully. On stage was Daniel and three backup female singers. The females singers were perfect for songs like “Too Deep”  features a large female role in the song.

While playing songs from both their album, Sept. 5th and Morning After, they also mixed in R&B favorites like Usher “U Got It Bad” and Beyonce and Justin Timberlake’s “Until The End of Time.” It was nice that they showed off their influences.

Miguel has previously went out on road for the War & Leisure Tour to support the album of the same title earlier this year. He made it clear that this tour was not to support any album, so while he played a lot of songs from that album, he also played b-sides from his previous projects.  It was interesting to see him highlight other songs, like “Arch & Point” from Kalediscope Dream, but I wish he did play some of his hits, like “Coffee.”

The concert was also greatly influenced by rock concerts. There were a lot of electric guitars and head banging. But the production was different from what I’ve seen before from any one, focusing on the “ascension” theme and rising up, featuring a lot of stairs, temples and neon colors.

It was great to see how these artists presented their work using visuals that you can’t see by just listening to an album. I’m definitely looking forward to their next albums and more importantly, their next tours.

Lolla was crazy this year, and the hottest one I’ve been to so far. The heat in the high 90s really did get to me, so I didn’t watch as many shows as I used to, but the ones I saw were some of the beststhat I have seen at festivals.My only regret is that the heat got to me and I missed a lot of the acts that I wanted to see Saturday, including Daniel Caesar and Carly Rae Jepsen, but it is always important to put your health first at festivals, no matter what.

Below are the best songs that I saw performed for each set that I saw.

Thursday

Jaden Smith-“Batman”

Jaden’s set was short, about 25 minutes, and he performed “Icon” twice. Despite its brevity, the highlight of the set was him performing “Batman.”  The dark knight himself matches Jaden’s personality and the theme of his album Syre.

Khalid-“Love Lies”

Khalid brought out two surprised guests during his performances, Alina Baraz to perform “Electric” and Normani to perform “Love Lies.” Normani and Khalid have great chemistry, and it is awesome to see Normani perform as a solo artist.

Camila Cabello-“Into It”

This is the sexist song on Camila’s debut, and Camila made it fun in flirty by adding Prince’s “Kiss” in the middle of the song.

Travis Scott-“goosebumps”

During the performances, a fan fought his way on stage and Travis told secrurity to let him go. He then proposed to his girlfriend, with a ring and everything! It was the cutest thing ever, and the DJ said the most approriate song to perform after was “goosebumps.” Such a memorable moment and I defintely think about it every time I hear this song now.

Friday

Bebe Rexha-“The Monster”

Bebe Rexha wrote this song that eventually became the hook for Eminem and Rihanna’s. It was cool to see her take on her own song.

Alina Baraz-“I Don’t Even Know Why Though”

This is my favorite song from The Color of You. Its such a fun song, and you cold see her and her dancers were having a great time performing it.

Bruno Mars-“Finesse”

I can’t lie, every song that Bruno performed was amazing. But he opened up with “Finesse” which kicked off the high energy that the show had.

Saturday

Dua Lipa-“Be The One”

Dua Lipa is known for “New Rules” but I think she really kicked up the pace of the show with “Be The One.”

The Weeknd-“Often”

This song just goes so hard, especially live. Saying “often” so often in the middle of Chicago is just way too much fun.

Sunday

Jessie Reyez-“Hard To Love”

Many people don’t know that Jessie Reyez is behind some of Calvin Harris’ biggest songs, including his current single “One Kiss” with Dua Lipa. This is Reyez’s solo song on Calvin Harris’ last album and think its a great fit to show her honesty and vulnerability.

Sabrina Claudio-“Tell Me”

Sabrina has a video of her performing this song acoustically on her YouTube and it remains to be her best live song.