6LACK

His entry into the music industry was difficult, but Atlanta rapper and singer 6LACK (pronounced Black) is now reaping the rewards of his arduous rise. With two albums, an EP and the singles released from each, the 30-year-old has so far collected 31 gold and 32 platinum awards worldwide. He has already been nominated three times for a Grammy and currently counts around 17 million monthly listeners on Spotify. March 24 saw the release of "Since I Have A Lover," his eagerly awaited third album, with which the U.S. musician will now tour the globe over the next twelve months. He will reach Europe at the beginning of the coming year, and so 6LACK will also make a stop in Germany for two shows in Cologne and Berlin between February 21 and 27, 2024. Basically, the path of Ricardo Valdez Valentine, born in 1992 in Baltimore/Maryland, was already mapped out early on: At the age of four, his voice was captured on tape for the first time - in his father's own studio, he sang the line "When I grow up, I wanna be somebody." Following the guidelines of that same father, however, he first finished school before devoting himself entirely to music. By then, he had already made a name for himself as one of the most talented battle rappers in Atlanta, where his family moved when he was five years old. It is said that he rapped among other things the then also unknown MC Young Thug easily to the wall. At 19, 6LACK signed his first record deal and it turned out to be the biggest mistake of his life. Because the label was not interested in his very own skills, which lay between tough raps and extremely flattering R'n'B crooning and were equipped by him musically similarly heterogeneous. "They made me write hundreds of songs. Over and over again I presented them to them," he recounted in retrospect in an interview. "They never once said, 'This is good' or 'You could build on this,' they just said, 'This is not a hit' every time - and sent me away again." For five years, he was bound to that gag contract. He even moved to Miami to be near the label, slept in the studio in phases or sometimes even on the street - but not a single song of his appeared. After that contract ended, however, 6LACK finally found the right haven for his art, in Atlanta-based collective Spillage Village, as well as the artist-run label Love Renaissance, to which he remains signed to this day. They understood the special quality of this young man, whose velvety voice conveys that special crooner feeling that was once found in the soul legends of the 60s. He combined this feeling with a modern twist between R'n'B, HipHop, Trap and skillful songwriting - and consequently his career took off almost immediately and has been spiraling to ever greater heights ever since. In 2016, his very second single "Prblms" from his meaningfully titled debut album "Free 6lack" rose to No. 34 on the U.S. R'n'B charts and received a six-time platinum award. With further hit singles such as "OTW" or "Pretty Little Fears", which now have several hundred million streams on Spotify, and exciting collaborations with, among others, Rita Ora, Normani, Jessie Reyez, Young Thug or, most recently, the Gorillaz and Elton John, he increased his increasingly international success. Accordingly, his second album, "East Atlanta Love Letter," climbed into the top 20 album charts in over 15 nations worldwide in 2018. Until he managed his first global superhit with the feature track "Calling My Phone" together with Lil Tjay in 2021, which rose not only in the U.S. and Canada, but also in Australia, UK and other countries up to the top 3 of the charts. Now 6LACK is taking the next big swing with his third album "Since I Have A Lover", which is very personal in content. - Since I Have A Lover Tour relocated from LMH Tickets remain valid