What It’s Like To Be On Tour With 21 Savage And Young Thug
Photographer John Canon’s inside look at one of the year’s hottest tours.
FADER cover stars 21 Savage and Young Thug are two original spirits. They're currently finishing up their HIHORSE'D tour and luckily, photographer John Canon tagged along for the ride and was able to share some highlights. In a phone call with The FADER, Canon revealed everything that goes down behind the scenes — what video games the "introverted" 21 plays during his downtime and some noteworthy highlights from the road.
JOHN CANON: Touring is different with a young new artist because it forces you to be a fly on the wall which made me better as a photographer. [21] is not necessarily the person that has a bunch of poses so you gotta catch him in the moment. Like, he's an introvert.
His stage persona depends on the show. If the show is going a certain way he might interact a different way but if it's not, then probably not. He feeds off the energy of the crowd. Recently they've [the audience] been feeding off the whole Kylie thing and overall, on the tour, I've seen that the reaction for 21 is a lot bigger than everybody else performing.
We were in Tulsa and a fan managed to climb up on this little bar on the roof and he was hanging from it during the show. I would describe 21 fans as the same; cool, jumping people. They are a reflection of him but a little more open. When I say open, they may talk a little more but they're the same people. There's a blog that shows, specifically, different fans. It's on TIDAL. It's basically like a tour diary and has four to five shows of him on the bus and other things.
A typical day [on tour] would just be riding on the bus and playing video games. We play NBA 2K, UFC, Grand Theft Auto, and stuff like that. Then it's straight to the stage from there and probably sleep for the night. He eats pizza, chicken fingers on tour--he doesn't eat a bunch of food, it's usually the same thing. He'll eat a salad but it depends. If it's good he'll eat it.
21 is a perfectionist like me. He doesn't like typical pictures. He likes the sharpest images with no filters or dramatic colors. Just raw, simple photographs.
