Larry June & Monroe Flow
June 19, 2023
History, Toronto, ON
Canadian Beats Passport
West Coast hip-hop artist Larry June played one of his only Canadian tour dates in Toronto Monday night at the History concert venue. Larry is currently making his way across North America for his ‘Larry’s Market Run 2023’ tour which features mostly American concert dates – the only other Canadian show was played in Vancouver, BC a few weeks ago.
The opening duties went to American rapper Monroe Flow who surely brought energy to the crowd with his unique performance style. Monroe routinely went down into the press pit in front of the stage and interacted with the crowd. On one occasion Monroe Flow actually jumped into the audience and started his own mosh pit briefly before returning to the stage. The crowd would eat it all up and slowly but surely the venue would become a very hazy environment.
Larry’s official DJ who goes by the name of DVME would bless the house with his mix after the opening act left the stage and built steady anticipation for the main event of the night.
The ongoing theme of the tour seemed to be fruit but more specifically the orange which is a common item a person would buy when on a market run to a grocery store. The stage design was unique with a large, front-slanted platform with orange fruit pits on the right and left sides. I’m not sure if the oranges were real produce or just a stage prop but my money is on the latter. The stand-out thing about Larry is his regular use of lo-fi beats, throwback cars, and VHS footage in his videos. What is old, is new again so to speak which is a popular aesthetic with a lot of new artists in hip-hop and other alternative forms of music these days. Larry June, who calls the bay area in California home seems to tap into the early 90s vibe which can tug on your heartstrings with nostalgia if you were alive in those days. A sample of the setlist played in Toronto would be song titles like “Feeling good today” and “6 am in Sausalito”. Some personal favorites of mine “89 Earthquake” and “Smoothies in 1991” were performed during the closing portion of the show. Larry’s latest album titled “The Great Escape” which dropped earlier this year is a collaboration project0 with production legend The Alchemist who helped bring in a much larger audience and expand his fan into the mainstream.
It will be interesting to see what lies next for Larry June and which new collaborations might be in the works for the rest of 2023 and beyond.
Monroe Flow
Larry June
