Don’t miss Don Lifted at Crosstown Arts tonight at 9:30 p.m. The emerging artist will perform songs from his recent December LP.
A few months ago, I accidentally walked into a Don Lifted (i.e. Lawrence Matthews) performance at Crosstown Arts. The room was full of machine-generated fog. Twenty old televisions, stacked on top of one another, looped VHS footage from the 1990s. Matthews was at the mic, surrounded by a band, rapping about family, anxiety, faith and everything in between.
I was hooked. Matthews music, is, as he says, “made for night driving.” The sound is intensely layered; made from hundreds of samples that Matthews carefully arranges beneath rapidly delivered lyrics. Big-name influences include Nirvana, Drake, Coldplay and Kanye.
“I’m a sampler,” says Matthews.
Matthews is also an emerging painter who recently graduated from U of M. Tonight promises to be both visually and sonically cool.