UNCOVER | ON THE ROAD
Playing The Videogame Online.
AWFM, PreauXX, CmaJor and Kid Maestro are leaving Memphis again. The Weirdly LuXXurious Tour has become their annual attempt to make the world a little smaller, one strange room at a time.
There is a version of touring that looks efficient on paper. A clean routing. Matching flyers. The same bill in every city. Get in, play, get paid, leave. The Weirdly LuXXurious Tour has never really operated like that.
Instead, the annual trip from UNAPOLOGETIC. artists AWFM, PreauXX, CmaJor and Kid Maestro has increasingly become something closer to a traveling experiment. They leave Memphis, drop themselves into somebody else's room, meet the people already building there, perform, connect, improvise and keep moving.
The stops do not even pretend to be identical. One night might place Memphis hip hop beside punk or experimental acts. Another folds the crew into a larger local gathering. Another becomes a free community event with artists from the city sharing the bill. The consistency is not the venue or even the format. The consistency is the four people traveling together.
"Hustlin in Memphis can feel like playin a videogame offline. Who cares how good you are if you're not visible to the world."AWFM
That line might explain the tour better than any press release could.
Memphis is capable of making people incredibly good at what they do while simultaneously convincing them that being known at home is the same thing as being visible everywhere. For AWFM, the road is a way of interrupting that illusion.
"The Weirdly LuXXurious tour has become our annual effort to meet the world in our own crazy, organic, and probably slightly inefficient way."AWFM
The Road Is Not Just Promotion.
Kid Maestro talks about touring less like a campaign and more like planting roots.
"Traveling to different cities these last few years has been an amazing experience. I personally feel like I'm finally connecting with the people I would've needed if I were planted there like I'm planted in Memphis."Kid Maestro
That distinction matters. These trips are not only attempts to find listeners. They are attempts to find collaborators, promoters, venue owners, artists, organizers, friends and entire pockets of people who might become part of what UNAPOLOGETIC. is building long after the van leaves.
PreauXX describes the same thing from another angle. For him, touring has changed both his understanding of community and his confidence as an artist.
"It's been an honor beyond words being able to travel the world building new connections and cities. I've learned the power of community and importance of it outside Memphis."PreauXX
"Touring has shown me how important of a part it is to the music journey. And it's made me that much more confident in my craft."PreauXX
CmaJor sees another kind of value in the road. The cities matter, but so does what happens between the four of them while they are moving through those cities together.
"Tour with the gang is always a teaching experience. I love connecting with people hustling towards similar goals in different cities, but even more love learning new things about my brothers each trip."CmaJor
Same Van. Very Different People.
Part of what keeps the tour interesting is that the four travelers do not occupy the same lane.
AWFM
Chaos, confession, humor and ugly truth. The loudest argument for refusing to become easier to understand.
PreauXX
A performer built for rooms. Charisma, movement, bars and the instinct to make strangers participate.
CmaJor
Producer, musician and architect of rhythm. The grit beneath the trip and a central part of AWFM's current sound.
Kid Maestro
Producer, sound artist and connector. Curious enough to treat every new city like somewhere he might have lived.
Five Stops. Four Cities.
The fourth Weirdly LuXXurious run begins in Jackson, doubles back through the city less than a week later, then moves through St. Louis and Chicago before ending in New Orleans in September.
Jackson, MS
C.S.'s
Jackson, MS
Offbeat Jxn
St. Louis, MO
Pop's Blue Moon
Chicago, IL
Epiphany Hall
New Orleans, LA
Gasa Gasa
They Are Not Bringing Memphis Just To Talk To Memphis.
The individual flyers reveal what the master itinerary cannot: every stop has its own personality.
In Jackson, the tour shares space with a deliberately mixed local bill. In St. Louis, Weirdly LuXXurious folds into One Last ROTN at Pop's Blue Moon, powered by Paint Louis and Mighty Kind. The New Orleans stop is a free event featuring Mac Infinity, Godlee 222, Jhane, GoodNewsBas, PreauXX and AWFM, with DJ sets from CmaJor and Kid Maestro.
That is the point. The tour does not arrive in each city and construct a little Memphis bubble around itself. It enters somebody else's ecosystem.
Because Being Good At Home Is Not Enough.
There is something almost anti-industry about the Weirdly LuXXurious strategy.
It is not waiting for a national system to suddenly discover four Memphis artists. It is not assuming an algorithm will efficiently introduce them to exactly the right communities. And it does not appear particularly interested in pretending that growth is clean.
Instead, they keep getting in the car.
A relationship in Jackson becomes another reason to return to Jackson. A person met in Chicago becomes somebody who knows the work the next time they arrive. A local act becomes a future collaborator. A promoter becomes a friend. A room of strangers becomes slightly less strange.
Repeat that long enough and a map begins to form.
Maybe that is what making it looks like from Memphis. Not escaping home. Making home bigger.