-
- Honolulu concerts
-
Artists
Get your tour dates seen by one billion fans: Sign up as an artist
It seems that for all the esoteric and boundary pushing records that most musicians seem to gravitate towards later in life, it’s always going to be the music that they grow up with that will come the most naturally to them. This makes Frankie J quite lucky in a strange way, since he and his family moved to San Diego, California from Tijuana, Mexico when he was two. Because of that, the music that would shape him in his most formative years would be the Latin music that his family brought over and played when he was a kid, as well as the first waves of west coast hip hop that would spawn from his neck of the woods when he was a teenager.
The combination of the two has made him one of the most consistently succesful pop stars of the 2000’s, and is still going strong to this very day. By the time he was in high school, he was already singing in talent shows across his home state, encouraged to sing as much as he could by his family. By 1997 he’d signed with Hola Recordings as a Freestyle artist by the name of Frankie Boy. His brand of dance pop was released on three compilation records but a full length album was shelved, since in 1999, Frankie joined his first group, the Mexican Cumba sensations Kumbia Kings, as their co-lead vocalist. The group saw his first taste of true success, with the group’s first album selling half a million copies and earned a nomination for Latin artist of the year at the American Music Awards.
However, Frankie wasn’t satisfied with being one of the boys in the band. By 2003 he’d signed a solo contract with Columbia Records and in the same year his first and second solo records were released to great commercial success. May saw the release of his debut, “What’s A Man To Do” and the following July was when his first Spanish language solo album “Frankie J” came out as well. 2003 proved to be a banner year for Frankie, as his debut solo single went to number 19 on the Billboard Hot 100, and the first single that he featured on after his solo debut, Baby Bash’s “Suga Suga”, went into the top ten of the same chart.
Since then, he’s had a platinum record in the form of his second English language album “The One”, a number 3 hit on the Hot 100 with “Obsession (No Es Amour)”, and has toured with fellow Latin legends Jennifer Lopez and Enrique Iglesias. While he may not get the chart hits that he regularly scored in his earlier career anymore, Frankie J is an artist that doesn’t need figures or chart placements to back him up. He’s proved himself time and time again and will continue to do so with panache and fantastic songs. Highly recommended.
Bash’s musical career began in the early noughties, not too long after injury had conspired to curtail a promising basketball career in college. Between his hometown of Vallejo and his new, adopted home base of Houston, Texas, he found himself performing in a number of hip hop groups, including Latino Velvet and Potna Deuce. That was enough to put him on the hip hop map in his own right, and he released a couple of moderately-received records in 2001 and 2002, ‘Savage Dreams’ and ‘On tha Cool’ respectively.
Those records did more than enough to earn Bash a chance with Universal, who quickly signed him and put out album number three, ‘Tha Smokin’ Nephew’, in 2003. It would ultimately go gold, with sales of over half a million. His first release under the Bash name, meanwhile - ‘Super Saucy’ - would secure him a top twenty single in the U.S., in the form of the Akon collaboration, ‘Baby I’m Back’. In the years since, he’s continued to collaborate widely, with the likes of Paul Wall, Miguel, Too Short, Problem and T-Pain having appeared on his solo records, whilst he’s made four albums to date with his rap group Lone Star Ridaz, too.
Born in the American midwest of Chicago, Illinois, Soulja Boy moved to Atlanta, Georgia when he was six and later Batesville, Mississippi at age 14. It was in Mississippi that Way immersed himself in rap music and culture and began recording his ideas, some of which the rapper uploaded in 2005 on the website SoundClick. Soulja Boy’s debut album “Unsigned & Still Major” was independently released on Palmtree Productions in March 2007 and by May that year his single “Crank That (Soulja Boy)” was receiving steady radio play.
The rapper subsequently inked a deal with Interscope Records and had his single “Crank That” appear on the Emmy-Award winning TV series “Entourage”. The single went on to top the Billboard 200, and made way for Soulja Boy’s major-label debut “souljaboytellthem.com”, which peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200. Despite critical reviews from the musical press, the record sold remarkably well aided by the subsequent singles “Soulja Girl”, “Yahh!”, and “Donk”.
Soulja Boy’s sophomore full-length “iSouljaBoyTellem” was issued in December 2008 once again earning disappointing reviews despite popular singles. The record’s lead single “Bird Walk” charted at No. 40, followed by the Billboard Hot 100 No. 3 single “Kiss Me Thru the Phone”. The rapper subsequently embarked on his debut headlining tour entitled “America’s Most Wanted”, and began increasingly to tour the world over. The studio album “The DeAndre Way” followed in November 2010 however was marked by a lack of promotion and appropriate label consideration. Despite earning his best reviews to date and presenting a much more personal and candid album, the record charted at No. 90 on the Billboard 200.
The rapper’s next release, the mixtape “Smooky”, was released independently in 2010, after which he collaborated with rapper Young L on the mixtape “Mario & Domo vs. the World. The subsequent mixtape, 2013’s “Foreign”, sparked rumours suggestingg Soulja Boy was making a move to Cash Money Records, however the rapper’s fourth full-length “Loyalty” was ultimately released on his own label Stacks on Decks Entertainment.
I first encountered Keri Hilson, like most people, through her collaboration with Timbaland on the number one single, “The Way I Are” in 2007. Her sweet and smooth voice on the track crooning, “I like you just the way you are,” encouraged anyone from club-goers to radio listeners to sing along to every word of the massive R&B, pop hit. Then came her next big collaboration with Neyo and none other than Yeezus himself, Kanye West, on “Knock You Down.” The track was another massive chart success and definitely created more hype around Keri herself, being the lead act on this track instead of a featuring artist. Her song writing skills are second to none and I think she is completely underrated as an artist! I saw Keri Hilson in Birmingham in 2011 and her live performance definitely lived up to her mainstream success… It also showcased how well her writing talent translated into her stage presence - she had so much energy and her voice was pristine. Her songs were also blended together really well, it didn’t come across as a succession of separate and jolted chart hits, but she delivered her material in a very cohesive and polished way. I hope she comes back to the UK soon as I will definitely be seeing her again!
hbrownn02
Francisco Javier Bautista Jr is better known as Frankie J, and used to be a part of the musical group Kumbia Kings. However, when he started out on his solo career, he was able to establish a name for himself. Having been born in Tijuana, Mexico and raised in San Diego, California, he used his upbringing of latin and urban music as his major influences. This allowed him to have, what was at the time an extremely fresh sound. Able to both rap and sing, he is a multi-talented artist who puts on one hell of a show.
During his live set, there is a live band, but also uses a lot of pre-recorded tracks as well. The venue was fairly small, but also pretty full. His 10-song set lasted about 45 minutes, and had a various amount of guests. Most notable was Baby Bash, who took the stage with him for their song “Suga Suga.” The best song of the night was the stripped down acoustic version of “Obsession No Es Amor” which he did entirely in Spanish. For the song, a lot of the crowd was singing along, and at one point overpowered him, so he let them sing instead. He was very down to earth and greatly appreciated the support of his fans.
Ellinoinsta
You may not recognize the name Ronnie Ray Bryant, but anyone raised in the 90s will recognize the name Baby Bash. I was actually a bit apprehensive about going to his show, mainly because I didn’t know a lot of his songs; but somehow, my friend convinced me that I still knew enough that it’d be worthwhile. As much as I hate to admit it, she was right. The crowd was huge! I hadn’t really thought about how big of a following he had, but it was awesome because the energy level was set so high. When Baby Bash took to the stage I found myself singing and dancing along. I was also pleasantly surprised at how great his raps are live, probably because of the emotion and love of what he does really shines through. He was great with the audience, constantly engaging them and getting them pumped up (even though I didn’t think it was possible to raise the energy more). The best part about the show was that he had a lot of guests come on and do their collaboration songs. Like Frankie J coming on stage to sing “Sugar Sugar,” and Sean Kingston coming on to sing “What Is It.” He closed out the show with “Cyclone” and everyone went wild! The whole place boomed, with everyone singing and dancing.
Ellinoinsta
It seems bizarre to think that Soulja Boy - Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em, to give him his full street name, or DeAndre Cortez Way as he’s known at home - has only just turned twenty-four; he seems to have been around an age, with his global smash ‘Crank That (Soulja Boy)’ topping the charts in the U.S. and falling just short, at number two, in the UK, as long ago as 2007. He made a ton of cash of the back of that success, too, placing eighteenth on Forbes’ list of Hip Hop Cash Kings in 2010 with seven million dollars in earnings. His debut record went platinum, but the two follow-ups have failed to meet with as much success; you have to think that his fourth album, due later this year, could be make-or-break for the rapper. He’s continued to play live in the years since, performing tracks like ‘Turn My Swag On’ whilst flanked by a frankly unnecessary entourage and with little sign of anything in the way of a backing band, there have been accusations of his gigs amounting to little more than glorified karaoke. He’s likely to go all out on promotion for the new album, though, so expect his first UK dates in three years to follow shortly.
Joeg_67
Lloyd - who, for my money, should really be going by his fabulous birth name, Lloyd Polite Jr. - is one of those R&B singers who has a lifelong grounding int he music industry, having come up through a boy band in the form of N-Toon; he started out with the group at the age of just ten. Since then, he’s released a slew of solo records, signing with the likes of Def Jam and Murder Inc. down the years and seeing two of his albums go top ten in his native U.S., thanks in no small part to chart smashes like ‘Southside’ and ‘Get It Shawty’. More recently, he’s decided to veer away from the smooth R&B sound with which he made his name, swapping crooning for rapping and signing with G-Unit Records last year. He’s released one new track to date - the considerably heavier ‘Get Dat Doe’ - and looks set to make a serious tilt at the genre on his as-yet-unconfirmed fifth solo album. How that will affect his live shows remains to be seen; they’ve generally been mellow affairs, as was the case when he appeared at 2012’s Wireless Festival; he performed a slew of his laid-back classics, in a dubious leather jacket/bare chest combo, to a packed tent, and it’s difficult to imagine rap tracks fitting in with that particular vibe - time will tell.
Joeg_67
Log in to your account
