TORY LANEZ at the Hoxton, Monday, December 7. Rating: NNNN
There had been hushed rumours that Drake or even Justin Bieber might show up during Tory Lanez’s Hoxton set, but by a couple songs in, the on-the-rise Toronto rapper had proven he wouldn’t be needing them. The sold-out crowd had their hands in the air for the entire hour, often to hold him up as he walked on top of them, crowd-surfed his way around the room or swung from the ceiling pipes.
Besides his endlessly watchable physicality, Lanez, who founded the One Umbrella imprint/clothing label with his brothers, is an amazing self-taught singer with an aphrodisiac voice, which he showed off on snippets of Ginuwine’s Pony and Bell Biv Devoe’s Poison, testing to see who in the crowd was 80s and 90s “classic.” There was a brief lull during Dimelo, but Lanez still kept the energy high, pinballing through the crowd, seducing the VIP section and even bringing opener Boogie out for another run-through of Oh My.
Before laying into fan favourite and finale Diego, he addressed the crowd. “We right now in this building, we the new Toronto,” he said, drenched in sweat. “One Umbrella. We the new Toronto, ladies and gentlemen.”
music@nowtoronto.com | @mattgeewilliams
