The LOX comes to Boston with the Filthy America… It’s Beautiful tour
We’ve already talked about musical artists bringing hot entertainment to Boston when we highlighted Chris Brown’s upcoming tour in a previous article. In the same vein, another popular name in the hip-hop industry will perform here in April: The LOX.
The LOX is an American hip-hop group from Yonkers, New York. The group, whose name stands for Living Off eXperience, was formed in 1994 by rappers Jadakiss, Styles P, and Sleek Louch. The LOX rose to prominence when one of their demo tapes caught the attention of Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs, who signed them to a record deal on his own Bad Boy Records label.
The group first gained national exposure in 1997 when they collaborated with Combs for his hit single “It’s All About the Benjamins.” The group got more attention with “We’ll Always Love Big Poppa,” a tribute to The Notorious B.I.G. that went multi-platinum. Following additional collaborations with famous names like Mariah Carey and Jennifer Lopez, the group’s rising popularity took their 1998 debut album Money, Power & Respect to platinum status.
After their first album, The LOX, who wanted to portray themselves as a hardcore rap group, felt an increasing disconnect from the Bad Boy Records label, known more for its typical mainstream-friendly dance music and high-production music videos. The group left Bad Boy and went to join the Ruff Ryders/Interscope label, feeling it would be a better fit. The group’s second album, We Are the Streets, was released in 2000 and went gold. Following this, the group as a whole went on a sort of hiatus, but each individual member continued to produce new material as solo artists.
Fast forward to December 2016, and we see the release of The LOX’s new album Filthy America… It’s Beautiful, their first studio album together in 16 years. The album, released under both the Roc Nation record label and the group’s own D-Block Records label, peaked at #42 on the Billboard 200 and #6 on Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop albums. The group, which is now going city to city across the U.S. to promote the new release, kicked off their Filthy America… It’s Beautiful concert tour in Reading, Pennsylvania on February 25. Brooklyn rapper Uncle Murda is also in the lineup as the group’s opening act. The tour’s last stop is Baltimore on April 8th, but thankfully Boston will be one of their stops before then.
You can give The LOX’s new album Filthy America… It’s Beautiful a listen by streaming it in super high “high-fidelity” quality on the online music streaming service Tidal.com. For April’s show, The LOX and Uncle Murda will be playing their Boston leg of the tour at the House of Blues next Thursday on the 6th. Doors open at 7pm and the show begins at 8pm. Tickets can be purchased online through vendors such as Ticketmaster. Don’t miss it!