Stay Gold In-House Show: Boston’s Rising Hip-hop Artists
LEEWAY (Above) performed an in-house show alongsinde 2Late and WES., organized by Emmett Dwyer
Roxbury got a taste of the local music scene, on a cool Friday night in October, which stretched its legs after a long pandemic-induced slumber. Despite living in the city for a year, I only just attended my second Boston concert, a hip-hop show featuring artists from Northeastern University.
Enter LEEWAY, 2LATE and WES., three local artists who met during their time at college. They got together to put on a concert showcasing their music, with WES. and 2LATE opening and LEEWAY headlining. The show took place in an event space provided by Emmett Dwyer, who promotes the space for local artists to use. This venue is in the basement of his Roxbury home, though you wouldn’t know it.
After descending a set of stairs that felt like the entrance to the Catacombs of Paris, I entered into an open space that evoked summer nights and hole-in-the-wall venues. This was like no show you’ll ever attend. Even their special guest performer, magician Jonathan Vale, contributed to the electrifying atmosphere.
This was LEEWAY’s first performance in two years; the three artists tried hitting up local venues but struggled to find somewhere to perform. A lot of these venues look for indie rock artists, and LEEWAY believed some of them weren’t necessarily looking for rappers. So he said, “Fuck it, we’ll just do it ourselves.”
They successfully created an intimate and memorable concert experience with the help of Dwyer and their sound engineer, who works with all three of them. These artists are all connected through their music because they’re all doing the same thing—not fitting the mold with their art.
WES. opened the show. His roots lie in indie rock, and he’s been writing since he was 13, but he eventually fell in love with R&B and hip-hop. Somewhere along the way, his sound became an amalgamation of these influences. He mentioned how “pop is such a catch-all term” and “an explosion of all these new genres.” I shared my own thoughts about how all music is heading toward a blending of genres and becoming a less restrictive space than ever before. He responded, saying “I don’t think boxes are going to work very well going forward.”
2LATE added more to the topic. He’s recorded as 2LATE since 2019, his style a mix of alternative, R&B, pop and hip-hop. A lot of his music is inspired by “Toronto sound” and influenced by artists such as The Weeknd, Drake and PARTYNEXTDOOR that give off what he calls a “late night aesthetic.” For him, 2LATE is “about freedom, like just pursuing what you wanna do, being expressive, kinda like figuring out how to unlock your best self.” Some of his lyrical influences come from philosophy—his major—such as his “infatuation with space and the freedom granted by our insignificance in the universe.”
All three artists showcased their various influences while performing on a stage lit in soft, orange-gold hues, like shining sunlight. This color choice was intentional; headliner LEEWAY’s set was the entirety of his new album, Stay Gold., which released on Aug. 13.
LEEWAY dug into his past in our interview, commenting that he felt pressure to “write for other people” and fit his music in with whatever else was produced, but he decided to approach this album as something he wrote purely for himself.
LEEWAY started writing music as a sophomore in high school. He was inspired by a poetry assignment for his history class, which turned into a rap about the French Revolution. This motivated him to start writing and producing music, though it was an “arduous learning process” to figure out on his own.
Stay Gold. is LEEWAY’s second album but his first full-length release on streaming services. Writing this album was a way for him to process his emotions about his life, the pandemic and a break-up. “It was very, like, validating to be able to hear it back in a physical way,” he said about the writing process. “This is real. This happened to me.”
He gave me a breakdown of the main themes on the album. Summer versus winter came up frequently, especially how they represent his relationships with himself and other people. “Stay Gold.,” his “personal anthem,” closes out the album with messages of acceptance and coming to terms with his experiences. Losing his “sunlight,” the person and experiences that used to sustain him, has made him realize that he needs to “stay gold” and “make it for himself.”
LEEWAY best explains this when covering his track “Fade Away”: “I feel like me making music is a way that I, like, know I exist...When I create art and put it out into the world, that gives me comfort because it...makes me feel like my existence and my experiences are very real...Other people can listen to that, too, and know it was real.”