Concert review: Drake at the Chicago Theatre
Drake performs at Chicago Theatre. (Photo for the Tribune by Marina Makropoulos)
The 23-year-old, Toronto-born TV-star-turned rapper Aubrey Drake Graham just has to walk onstage to rev up his lady-killer mojo.
At the screamfest that broke out Wednesday at the sold-out Chicago Theatre in the first of two concerts, Drake flexed the muscular posture, the sunglasses and the three-day facial hair of a guy who’s never hurting for female companionship. But on his recent debut album, “Thank Me Later,” he juxtaposes his boasts with anxiety, a regular guy wondering just what he’d gotten himself into, whether the love he feels is genuine, whether his chosen path is just a soul-sapping charade.
It all makes for one of the most intriguing new voices in hip-hop, a talent who in the last two years has collaborated with or written for artists ranging from Jay-Z and Kanye West to Alicia Keys and Mary J. Blige. What they crave is not just a piece of his charisma, but also his knack for combining pop hooks, psychodramatic combativeness, lip-smacking playfulness and unexpectedly dark introspection.
Continue reading "Concert review: Drake at the Chicago Theatre" »