Grieves may have been born in Chicago but Seattle, Washington has been his hometown for most of his career. He says that the reason it’s such a breeding ground for great music is that it’s “the same thing as London - it's rainy and gloomy and shitty all the time, so you stay in and make music”.
This does explain the influx of Hip Hop coming from the Pacific North-West, a charge led by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, no less. However, what it doesn’t explain is how Grieves’ music that’s so charged, vibrant and utterly full of life, can come from a place so resolutely grey and miserable.
He signed to the label Rhymesayers in 2010 but Grieves had been making music since 2007. He released his first record the same year and in 2008, he struck up a creative partnership with the producer Budo. He produced Grieves’ next album “88 Keys and Counting”, which was the record that got him signed.
The pair returned for 2011’s album “Together/Apart”, Grieves’ first charting effort on the Billboard 200 and topping the Billboard Heatseekers chart. The pair were also rewarded by joining the 2011 Warped Tour for a couple of dates, pushing their profile up all the more.
Since then Budo and Grieves have chosen to amicably seek new musical paths together, and the subsequent album from Grieves went to number 57 on the Billboard 200. Clearly, he is a talent that can speak eloquently and powerfully for himself, and he’s only just getting started.
Benjamin Laub, aka Grieves, is a multi-talented rapper/singer that I spontaneously checked out on a random trip to Seattle, Washington. He hails from the same location as Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, and you can definitely see the similarity in style of the two acts; Laub, however, has a talent for singing which he includes in his songs.
For his set he opened with “Woah Is Me,” a song about life. Grieves writes his material on real life, and has a hell of a lot of fun doing it flawlessly transitioning from rapping his verses to singing his choruses. As he performs you can see how much he enjoys it, which emanates out to the crowd. He also performed an older song “Scar Gardens,” which, as he said, “changed up to keep things fresh.” I obviously didn’t know how it was different since it was the first time hearing the song, but for a first time listener I did end up going back and listening to the original since I liked the live performance so much.
Aside from “thanks” and introductions, he also talked to the crowd. In between songs he told a few stories of his move into Seattle and part of how he got into making music shortly after moving. He also included a bit of banter between himself, his guitar player and his keyboardist. He finished out the set with two more songs: “Shreds” and “Kidding Me,” and overall I left the show satisfied with the performance.
Ellinoinsta
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