Summerfest 2021 Festival Stage Headliners for Week One:
T-Pain - September 2
Blanco Brown - September 4
GA Tickets available here for the weekend, individual days, or the whole festival.
T-Pain
“I didn’t have a chance to come into the game with my natural voice,” T-Pain told Nick Cannon as he removed his monster costume as winner of The Masked Singer. “A lot of my peers did and they get accepted. This helped me get my voice out there even more.” For a decade and a half we’ve witnessed the Auto-Tune tinged legend create hit after hit, but now he’s out to 1UP himself. It’s a brand new day for T-Pain.
2005 was the year we first met the artist born Faheem Rasheed Najm with the release of his debut album Rapp Ternt Sanga. By 2007, T-Pain had the game in a chokehold, topping the charts with his follow-up Epiphany, which carried the colossal single “Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin’).” The Tallahassee, Florida native continued to deliver high energy, charismatic tunes and garnering a gargantuan fan base.
He collaborated with everyone from Lil’ Wayne (collectively known as T-Wayne) to Taylor Swift, while grabbing two Grammys: one for his collaboration with Kanye West on 2008’s “Good Life” (off West’s Graduation) and the other with Jamie Foxx on 2010’s “Blame It” (off Foxx’s Intuition). His projects Thr33 Ringz (2008) and Revolve? (2011) both proved T-Pain’s staying power in an ever-changing market, as the artist’s undeniable personality and skill reflected in both his music and his celebrity status (see his cameo on SNL comedy troupe Lonely Island’s Grammy nominated track “I’m On A Boat” for further evidence).
After dominating hip-hop and R&B for over five years (including the creation of an Auto-Tune app and Super Bowl commercial), T-Pain went silent. “I was becoming somebody that I didn’t like,” he admits. “I was living an unhappy lifestyle and it started affecting my family. I was hurting and scaring a lot of people.” He returned shortly thereafter to drop two more efforts, including 2015’s Stoicville: The Phoenix and 2017’s Oblivion.
However, T-Pain raised the stakes in 2018. He launched his clothing line Wiscansin University, locked a TV series with Fuse, T-Pain’s School of Business, hosted Red Bull’s Remix Lab, and found his way to Good Morning America thanks to his cut “Catchy Song” for the Lego Movie 2 soundtrack.
By 2019, T-Pain kept the momentum going, and at the close of February dropped his long awaited 1UP project via Cinematic Music Group. From the title track to the singles “A Million Times” (with O.T. Genasis), “All I Want” (with Flipp Dinero), and “Getcha Roll On” (with Tory Lanez), T-Pain proved once again that not only is he the master of Auto-Tune, but also can finesse his own natural chops as he did on that Masked Singer stage. Other cuts including “Here It Comes” (with Russ) and “Goat Talk” (with Lil Wayne) further that claim. T-Pain is a star and has been since he first entered the scene.
If there’s one valuable lesson to glean from the life of T-Pain, it’s consistency. The singer, songwriter, producer, and celebrated performer/entertainer has spent the greater whole of his career bringing masses together with feel good music. The party won’t stop here. T-Pain is only getting started.
Blanco Brown
Blurring the lines between Country and hip-hop music, Blanco Brown makes a southern sound that he proudly calls "trailer trap." It's a boundary-breaking, multicolored genre of his very own — which draws upon the rawness and storytelling abilities of his two biggest musical influences, Johnny Cash and Outkast. His debut EP, Blanco Brown, showcases the full range of its creator, who juggles multiple roles as the project's songwriter, producer, vocalist, visionary, and multi-instrumentalist.
Years before he rose up the ranks as a Grammy-nominated engineer and major-label solo artist, and one of Billboard’s “7 Country Acts to Watch in 2019” Blanco— grew up in two very different worlds, both in the state of Georgia, splitting his time between the city projects and the rural countryside. During the school year, he'd spend his months in Atlanta, where the crime that filled his neighborhood was offset by the love and musical connection shared by his family. Every summer, he’d head out of town temporarily moving in with relatives in the small rural town of Butler, GA.
During those summers in Butler, the soundtrack that had filled his days back home in Atlanta — the R&B harmonies he'd sing with his brothers; the rap he'd hear blasting from the cassette players in passing cars; the gospel music he'd howl every Sunday morning in church — gave way to the laidback, rootsy sounds of Johnny Cash songs and Bobby Blue Bland records. It was there, far away from city life, that Blanco became a fan of Country music. As each summer drew to an end, though, he'd head back to the city, leaving behind the twangy sounds of Butler and returning once again to the projects of Atlanta.
Those two worlds come together with Blanco Brown, an EP that strikes a balance between Blanco's contrasting backgrounds. A mix of countrified influences and street-smart lingo, the EP finds Blanco dressing up his rapid-fire lyrics and melodic hooks with layers of lap steel, thumping kick drum, harmonica, spoons, tambourine, banjo, synthesizers, 808 percussion, guitar, and plenty of vocal harmonies. The result is a debut EP that's both urban and rural, blending the sounds of Blanco's diverse upbringing into the world's very first trailer-trap project.