Shad Announces North American Tour

7 best albums of the week – NPR New Music Friday

Best New Rap Songs – Consequence of Sound

★★★★★ – The Manitoban

★★★★ – La Presse

★★★★ – Le Soleil

October 25, 2021: Toronto rapper Shad is thrilled to announce his North American tour, including dates in New York, Seattle, Portland, Philadelphia, and Washington DC. Tickets will go on sale this Thursday at 10 am ET HERE. The complete list of tour dates is below.

Earlier this month Shad released his brand-new, critically acclaimed album TAO, which received an overwhelmingly positive response from media and fans alike and was picked up by NPR, Ebro, Consequence of Sound, Complex, Hip-Hop Wired, Brooklyn Vegan, Exclaim!, Strombo, KEXP, Globe and Mail and many more. Shad also landed on billboards and playlist covers across streaming platforms.

Over the course of five records to date, the JUNO Award-winning Toronto rapper has used an array of old-school tools to tackle modern problems, addressing the indignities and absurdities of our world through a shapeshifting mélange of boom-bap breaks, dusty soul samples, jazzy improvisation, and 10-dollar words rolled into thousand-dollar rhymes. But after weaving his myriad musical and philosophical interests into a socio-political song cycle on 2018’s Polaris shortlisted A Short Story About A War, Shad began building his sixth record, TAO, from a much simpler concept: an image of a circle. Though, in true Shad fashion, he saw something much more profound within its basic round boundaries.

TAO is about deep connection, wholeness, and the various threats to it. TAO refers to the Chinese philosophy of naturalism and is an acronym drawn from CS Lewis’ highly prescient 1943 book, The Abolition Of Man, that discusses The Tao. The TAO acronym is also found in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff, another very influential book for Shad during his writing process. “The books were written something like 70 years apart but totally connect on the topic of preserving our humanness against certain threatening ideologies and technologies,” he explains. “Each song on the album focuses on a different part (or parts) of our humanity that we’ve been losing touch with.”

“Shad’s alternative hip-hop is infused with soul, jazz, scratching, trap, punk, and noise, all driven by a heartfelt, dynamic flow and inspiring leitmotifs.” ★★★★ – La Presse

“Work” is just the next statement in Shad’s legacy as one of Canada’s most revered musical pioneers.” – The Line of Best Fit

“A heavy-hitting song” [Work] – COMPLEX

“As always, Shad’s breathless flow holds the whole thing together.” [Out of Touch] – Flood Magazine

“A powerful single” [Storm] – KEXP, Song of the Day

“Shad’s single “Work” […] is a criticism of hustle culture, the daily grind and late stage capitalism delivered with hard-hitting irreverence. Shad wants us to take a step back and really look at the bigger picture.” – CBC Music: Albums you need to hear this Fall

“The rap artist Shadrach Kabango is an elite, thoughtful rhymer with colourful musical ideas” – Globe and Mail

Tour Dates

Apr 29 – St. Cats, ON @ Warehouse

Apr 30 – Hamilton, ON @ Bridgeworks

May 6 – Ottawa, ON @ Club Saw

May 7 – Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz

May 12 – Moncton, NB @ Tide & Boar

May 13 – Halifax, NS @ Marquee

May 14 – Fredericton, NB @ Boyce’s Market

May 19 – New York, NY @ baby’s all right

May 20 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s

May 21 – Washington, DC @ Songbyrd