Under The Influence Tour in Toronto with Kendrick Lamar, Mac Miller, and Wiz Khalifa

Now I’m not trying to brag or nothing, but I’ve had a TON of media passes before to shows/concerts, and even been back stage for a good bunch of them too. However, I’ve never really had any sort of luck getting passes for shows at Toronto’s Molson Amphitheater. The fact that the Amphitheater holds about 20,000 people and pretty much is always promoted by Live Nation means that only the super verified photographers with top notch credentials or a very good inside hookup usually find their way to a media pass.

Well the past Sunday my luck had a change for the better. Now that I’m linked up with hustleGRL and we had the connections of American Hip-Hop blogger Karen Civil since she was visiting for the weekend, this meant I found my way backstage very very easily.

Backstage life at this show was really something else I gotta tell ya. With such high profile headliners in the Hip-Hop world, you could’ve easily guessed that some of the biggest Toronto stars would also be backstage in attendance watching the show as well. So there I was… backstage at media/vip sidepit taking photos and watching the show to none other than The Weeknd, Belly, and their whole camp.

Me and the homie Slava are walking back-n-forth from the media side pit to the backstage loading dock and what not, and there we see 3 or 4 recently parked Range Rovers. What’d that mean? Drake & OVO camp just arrived and we’re in the building. Sure enough, on the way back to the sidepit we see Drake chilling on the other side of the stage with his own section lol.

We ended up getting interviews from Kendrick Lamar and Mac Miller, both features for hustleGRL, and had the chance to watch a bit of every artist’s set. It’s such a surreal experience sometimes, to be so close with the artists you jam out to on your iTunes or while in the car. We’ve all seen them in magazines, in their music videos, in interviews and what not, and here they are… right in front of you lol.

You see all their jewelery, the fancy clothes, the blunts, the drinks, the women, the security guards, and then when the show is all said and done… they pack up the tour buses and head to the next city while you pack up, hop back in your car, and resume real life lol.

Shout outs to hustleGRL and Karen Civil first and foremost for giving me the opportunity to have such experiences and moments in my life. I could never let privileges like these get to me because I know it’s not off of my merit, rather it was based off of fortunate events I was here. Shout outs to Kendrick Lamar and Mac Miller for being incredibly nice, down to earth, and willing to share their personal lives in their interviews. And of course, shout out to the homie Slava who conducted the interviews while I tried my best not to shake the camera from being starstruck while filming lol.

For the concert review, hit up hustleGRL and read the article here.