For the first time in about six years, Soulo season is back in full effect. The Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE) wordsmith returned in late 2022 and shook up a lot of Hip-Hop heads’ best-albums-of-the-year lists with the mid-December release of his fifth studio album, Herbert, and now he’s back on tour for the first time since TDE’s Championship Tour in 2018. Titled after his government name, Ab-Soul’s latest album is his most personal one yet, as he delivers raw emotion and deep introspection on his mental health while also serving up healthy doses of his wordplay-filled conundrums that he’s been known for over his decade-plus career. With the fans having a few months to digest the new music, Ab-Soul is set to hit the road on The Intelligent Movement Tour to perform some of these new songs live for the first time.

This show at Adelaide Hall would be the very first show of the tour, and Ab-Soul’s first time headlining a concert since 2017. Compared to past Toronto performances at Budweiser Stage and The Phoenix Concert Theatre, this is probably the smallest venue Ab-Soul has performed at while in the T-Dot, with only a few hundred fans being able to get into this sold-out show. The intimate setting definitely fit the mood of the new album, as the stage simply had a DJ booth and a microphone, with no visuals to distract listeners from Ab-Soul’s thoughts and lyrics.

Joining Ab-Soul on this tour would be Python P holding it down on the turntables, and he’d get the crowd warmed up to start the show by spinning some TDE tracks by Soulo’s fellow Black Hippy members: Jay Rock, Schoolboy Q, and Kendrick Lamar. Pretty soon he’d bring out the opener for the tour, Fre$H (f/k/a Short Dawg), who used to be affiliated with Young Money Entertainment before re-branding and changing his stage name. While I didn’t know much about Fre$H going into this show, he made a good first impression with the way he spit his raps raw with no backing vocals and easily won the crowd over with his showmanship.

Rocking a newly bought Vince Carter jersey, Fre$H kicked off his set with his 2017 WorldStarHipHop single, the 50 Cent and 2 Chainz assisted “Petty,” and got the crowd to put up their peace signs for “2Hunnid.” The Texas emcee had the right energy to get the crowd hyped from the beginning, as he reminded them of his Young Money days by performing “Pass The Dutch,” before doing some new, unreleased joints off of his upcoming album, ReFre$hments. Wanting to show off his bars, he’d perform a freestyle over Mobb Deep’s “Quiet Storm” and later on spit an acapella verse filled with punchlines, moving the crowd with lines like “keep the p***y close like Anthony Davis’ eyebrows.” Fre$H would pause to have drinks with the crowd and crack jokes between performing some of his collabs with artists like Lil’ Wayne and Wiz Khalifa, and by the end of his set had the entire room chanting his hook to his song “Inflation,” everyone shouting the lyrics “I ain’t tryna hear that!”

After a hype, energetic set by Fre$H, there wouldn’t be much of a wait at all, as Python P quickly brought out Ab-Soul to perform next, pressing play on the recording of Soulo’s grandma that starts off the album.

Diving right into the new album with the intro track “Message In A Bottle,” Ab-Soul had the crowd behind him from the beginning, as they shouted out lyrics and helped finish lines for him. He’d follow up with “Hollandaise,” visibly excited to be spitting these new raps in front of a crowd and nailing his speedy flows on the beat-switch. He’d then take some time to slow down and acknowledge the crowd, being open about being legally blind and making sure the fans in the front could stop him from falling off the stage. He’d also reflect on the years gone by since he last headlined a show, with mixed emotions as he gave an RIP shoutout to his friend and former hypeman DoeBurger, who passed away during the pandemic, and a birthday shoutout to his current DJ, Python P.

With this being his first headlining show in six years, there were bound to be some kinks to be worked out with the setlist, but Soulo and P had fun with it. After a performance of “No Report Card” that had the room grooving, Ab-Soul would get the crowd to make noise if this was their first time seeing him, a segment meant to take him into some throwbacks, but P told him he queued it up too early. While Ab-Soul acknowledged the fuck-up, the timing seemed perfect for him to play it off and transition into the moody “It Be Like That,” a song about living through ups and downs and recovering from mistakes. After that smooth recovery, it was now time to bring out the throwbacks, as Ab-Soul took it back to 2012’s Control System album and turned the crowd up with a verse each from “Track Two” and “Bohemian Grove.”

Looking out for his day-one fans, Ab-Soul teased the beginning of “Pineal Gland” before abruptly stopping to see who knew the song word-for-word. He’d then pick out a fan from the crowd named Deji to bring up on stage with him, and they’d perform the song together. Rocking a Dikembe Mutombo Denver Nuggets throwback (shoutout to the Nuggets’ Game 1 win in the NBA Finals), Deji actually killed the first verse and got the crowd behind him, which got Ab-Soul energized to go back and forth with him for the second and third verses, earning the hat off of Ab-Soul’s head as a gift. The energy stayed high, as Soulo next performed what would be the only song of the evening off of 2016’s Do What Thou Wilt, “Huey Knew THEN,” with the lyrics “this ain’t marijuana, please don’t tell my momma” connecting the two songs brilliantly.

Talking about wanting to really just rap, Ab-Soul would bring it back to the new album, performing a song actually produced by Python P, “Goodman.” The certified head-nodder is a highlight of the album for me, as it uses the same sample flipped on Ghostface Killah’s “Purified Thoughts,” but does it at a slower tempo that allows Ab-Soul’s wordplay and lyrics to stand out. In a live setting, the pace lets fans join in with a dope call-and-response flow to finish some of Soul’s bars. They’d continue with more highlights off the album, performing “Bucket,” “Moonshooter,” and “Gang’Nem,” the latter track bringing Fre$H back out on stage to rock his guest verse, him and Ab-Soul feeding off of each other’s energy as they spit their verses.

You could tell Ab-Soul was enjoying himself with the way he interacted with the crowd; the dope thing about smaller, more intimate shows like this is that fans can straight up have conversations with the artist on stage. Some fans would request songs they wanted to hear like “God’s A Girl” and “Gotta Rap,” and one that Soulo actually performed was what would be the last 2012 throwback of the night, “Terrorist Threats.” This was the most hyped song of the evening, as the crowd got all the way turned up to that Jhené Aiko hook and gave all their energy, the majority being at their first ever Ab-Soul concert and wanting to hear the throwbacks. Soulo was blown away by the energy the crowd gave him, reflecting on how it really has been a long time since he rocked a Toronto crowd. As he’d mention a few times throughout the evening though, “nothing comes before the program,” meaning he was sticking to the setlist he’d laid out.

From here on out, the rest of the show would be new songs off of the new album. Soulo would talk about how personal this album was to him, urging the fans to put down their drinks and stop smoking for a minute to reflect on themselves as he performed the title track, “Herbert.” The song starts off as a calm instrumental for the first half before Soulo gets into a verse that’s essentially a mental health check-in while listing the struggles he’s faced over these past few years, and he put some extra emotion into it for the live performance, raising the intensity of his voice as he progressed through the verse. After getting through it he’d shout “you’re God damn right I’m in my feelings, I’m an artist and I’m sensitive about my shit!”

Following up that intense, emotional performance would be a bit of a cool down, as Ab-Soul got into the more party-oriented “Go Off,” followed by the uplifting “Church On The Move.” He’d keep the positive vibes going with the Hit-Boy produced “Fallacy,” Python P getting the crowd to shout during key breaks in the verses as Ab-Soul nailed his flow word for word. The crowd continued to get rowdy as they moved on into “F.O.M.F.,” shouting out the chorus with Soulo, and he’d then calm it back down and close out the show with what he called his new mantra, the deep, self-critical “Do Better.”

Knowing he couldn’t possibly end the show on such a low note, the fans chanted for an encore, and Soulo came back out to perform the last song off the album, “Gotta Rap.” The song closes both the album and the live show perfectly, as it’s essentially a victory lap recapping the mental health issues that come with addiction, depression, and the loss of family and friends which Ab-Soul overcame while creating this body of work. It sees Ab-Soul back at his most confident after knocking himself down and self-reflecting throughout the album, now spitting some braggadocios bars over those iconic DJ Premier drums, and works as a triumphant end-credits track to the movie of an album that is Herbert. The fans would keep their energy up and shout out key lyrics in this last song, and Soulo would alter the lyrics in the last hook to say “I like to call myself the God of Rap, and all of y’all should call me that!,” leaving the stage and letting the fans vibe out as the instrumental played to the end.

With Ab-Soul now gone backstage for good, Python P kept the party going by spinning some turn-up tracks by Dreamville, although much of the crowd started clearing out at this point.

Spending over an hour on stage by himself, Ab-Soul had this Toronto crowd in the palm of his hand. While you could tell most of the fans wanted to see more highlights from his discography, it was still good vibes all around as he performed the majority of the songs off his new album while sprinkling in a handful of throwbacks. He took the same approach with his last tour in 2017, where he performed the majority of his newest album at the time, Do What Thou Wilt, while tossing in a few Control System selections. It was refreshing for both the fans and probably Soulo himself to see the new songs off of Herbert get performed live for the first time, and to experience the music in such an intimate setting. For someone who hasn’t performed live in several years, Ab-Soul still has a sharp delivery and is able to pull the fans into his frame of mind, even for the more moodier tracks.

This small show at Adelaide Hall was a great way to kick off The Intelligent Movement Tour, and Ab-Soul is sure to move crowds as he continues the tour through the United States and Canada. Tickets for other tour dates can be found here.

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