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.

All photos by Ariana LaBarrie/fresh pair of iis

Taylor Swift brought her reputation Stadium Tour to Ford Field on Tuesday. Despite this being her first official, all stadium shows tour, this was her fourth time headlining Ford Field, bringing her tour here since the Speak Now tour.

Charli XCX kicked off this girl power tour with “Boom Clap,” commanding attention even though people were still trying to find their seats. Her brand of party music set a great vibe for the show and her energy was contagious.

Camila Cabello came out next repping the home team by wearing a Detroit Lions’ Jersey with her last name on it. Her vocals and performance showed why she deserved Artist of The Year at this year’s VMAs.

I’ve never been to a Taylor Swift show before, but I obviously seen clips on YouTube, so I thought I knew what to expect. I. Was. Totally. Wrong. It exceeded all expectations I had. As a person who loves concerts, but also has a lot of knowledge of the music industry, I thought the production value was amazing. The two B stages are bigger than the 1989 stage, which I already thought was massive. The main stage is huge, and when it plays images, they look 3D, as if snakes are hissing off the screen. How she smoothly got to one stage from another (sometimes via snake, sometimes a lit up ball) was seamless, and even the confetti being little Taylor Swift newspapers was so cute. The attention to detail was amazing.

If you are a fan of the reputation album, you will be pleased that she performs all songs off the album except “So It Goes…” She also performs some of her classics like “Blank Space,” “Love Story” and “Blood,” the latter two being medley or mashups with other songs.

As what has become a tradition during this tour, she played a surprise acoustic song on the B-Stage. You can see all the songs so far, (I’ve been keeping track) here. This time around it was “Jump Then Fall,” a bonus on song the Fearless: Platinum Edition album. As someone that became a Taylor fan during the Fearless era, I remember listening to this song on repeat on my iPod so it was great to see it performed acoustic for the first time.

While reputation is about revenge and trying to outrun preconceived notions about you, the show’s penultimate performance ended on a sweet note with “Call It What You Want,” showing that your reputation doesn’t matter with the right people.

While Taylor is a huge star, she expressed gratitude to everyone who made this tour possible. She also said kind words about Aretha Franklin and held a moment of silence for her in Aretha’s hometown.

While Taylor has been in the business for over a decade, I’m still very much excited for what’s to come next.

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.

Summer officially closes out with North Coast’s Labor Day Weekend festival. This weekend includes a mix of R&B, rap and EDM. I’m most excited about Miguel, dvsn and Cashmere Cat. Miguel is of course a big get for a festival, and I think is a great live performer. I feel like both dvsn and Cashmere Cat are underrated and I would love to see them live.

Get tickets to the festival here.