Rap and Hip Hop, not what you’d expect from us here at Ghost Cult, but we cover independent artists here as well as a major label! And the “It’s Different Now” Tour is quite literally the definition of an independent tour. Let’s dive into this, shall we….
Once I got into the venue and settled into my “office” for the night, it was then that I realized that I had missed a few of the openers. *gasp* So I was asking around for some input on the opening acts from people at the show. What I gathered from the vibe of the crowd and from some audience intel. All the openers put on a solid show, all of them had an okay footing in the local MA hip-hop scene. Another shoutout to ConcertCrave for helping put the spotlight on local artists on huge hip-hop tours around the country.
As of the last local openers got off the stage making way for the final opening act, a hush fell over the room. “HunnaV! HunnaV! HunnaV!” a chant started for my guy, HunnaV. I met Hunna last June at the “It Goes Up” Tour for Tech N9ne here at The Palladium. We became solid friends and have been in touch ever since. He’s also the entire reason I was even able to shoot this show. Again, huge shoutout to HunnaV… you the dude!
Mr. V ran on stage with his right-hand man, alongside him to bring the house down but also get the entire place moving in preparation for the show to come. Going through four or five songs of his that have been pulling some truly impressive numbers on Spotify and Apple Music, you could truly tell that a lot of the audience was there for HunnaV and Dax exclusively. Being able to get side stage and on-stage access is always an amazing perk that should never be taken for granted. As I was doing the photographer game from the back of the stage you could really tell that the whole Palladium was vibing to HunnaV’s rhythm and flows.
Taking the next 30 minutes or so to dump photos and get some quick on the field editing done. I managed to get everything ready for Dax to take the stage.
So, a bit of backstory on Dax if you don’t know who this guy is. Grew up in Canada, played basketball in college, had a job as a janitor after college. That’s right, the guy who opened up for one of rap’s biggest tours of the summer in 2019 (Tech N9ne’s “It Goes Up” Tour) and who has been pumping out music while on the road and totally unannounced half the time, built up a massive following of fans around the world (currently sitting at 1.4 million monthly listeners on Spotify) and garners 10,000,000+ views on YouTube for his music videos (the song “Dear God” in particular).
Sticking to that moniker so you don’t forget that this guy came from nothing, quite literally, he came out on stage in a janitor’s uniform… mop bucket and all. Blazing through a true arsenal of songs that spanned his whole discography, he never was at a loss for what to say or something to rap. He even premiered a new song on stage that night, the song “Self Proclaimed 3”, a series of songs he has written as a way of keeping himself grounded amongst all his success and triumphs. This latest victory song, so to speak, was for going on his first-ever headlining tour, his song “Dear God” blowing up (the video hit 10 million views in less than two weeks), releasing Killshot 2 AND having his first-ever show in the UK the month prior to the start of this tour. The man has QUITE a bit to celebrate!
When is said and done, 2019 was the year of Dax and we were all just living in it. 2020 is going to be even bigger for this guy. To quote the man himself, “WE ARE THE LABEL”.
WORDS AND PHOTOS BY CHRIS SMALL