5 Songs On “I Told You” That Tell Tory Lanez’s Story

Loners Blvd.

Concluding the three-song run that contains the bulk of I Told You‘s narrative, “Loners Blvd.” begins as depressing as its title sounds, but then provides the first non-romantic glimmer at the end of the tunnel for Lanez’s struggle. We find him tossed off a high school sports team and spending his last buck on a Dollar Menu bite to eat at the song’s start, but then something changes when he meets N-RIMES, a rapper and producer who put him on a few years back. He’s then in the studio, getting a ride with his aunt to his first show, and dreaming bigger than ever, his ambition the clear key to his success.

By verse two, he’s a few mixtapes deep, but nothing’s hitting until he meets his current manager, who’s also the founder of SXSW’s legendary Illmore party:

“Then I meet a guy named Sascha , he tells me he’s thinkin’ ’bout takin’ up management
Say he got a million dollar empire on his mind, he just need an artist to plan it with
He also say he throw shows out in Texas and maybe I should open up for one
Then I say ‘Cool man’ he books me the next flight out like I’m showin’ up for somethin'”

That’s not the end of it though, as Lanez says his first out-of-town show was a complete disaster:

“I lay down Houston around nine, warehouse live
It was my worst show ever
Niggas damn near got booed off stage
I performed like my first show ever
Women in the crowd wouldn’t scream for a nigga
Nigga’s in the crowd they were kotched up down
Bad enough niggas let Bun B watch
But I felt like I let Sascha down, this shit was live on stage dog
That night felt like a nigga had the whole world on my shoulders
Twenty years old tryna find a warm spot in this world gettin’ colder
Then he came to me like, “Dog, I could put money on this, bet a hundred on this”
Gives me a few tips for the next night
Setlist and says, “Dog you gonna run on this” and it all works out”

This verse is one of the most detailed come-up tales we’ve heard recently, and really puts us in Tory’s shoes to give us a taste of a struggling artist’s life. Interscope soon comes calling, but it’s telling that he grants his come-up with Sascha an entire verse, and only an interlude to his major label deal, which seems to have yielded the less narrative-driven part of I Told You.

– By Patrick Lyons