Artist Spotlight: Tory Lanez

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Daystar Peterson, better known by his stage name, Tory Lanez, is a Canadian-born rapper, singer, songwriter, and producer. Born to a Bajan father and a Curacaon mother, Lanez began music at a young age and was known to perfect his craft throughout his childhood.
In 2009, Lanes released his debut mixtape, ‘T.L. 2 T.O’ and began directing some of his music videos and posted them on his YouTube channel. Also, around this time, Lanez caught the eye of fellow artist, Sean Kingston, after Kingston saw a video of him freestyling over Lloyd Banks’ “Beamer, Benz, or Bentley”. In 2010, Kingston contacted Lanez, met up with him on Justin Bieber’s tour, and even got Lanez to perform. In 2011, Lanez signed to Time Is Money Entertainment, Kingston’s record label. Under the label, he released three mixtapes, ‘Mr. Peterson’, ‘Chixtape’, and ‘Swavey’, before leaving the label to become an independent artist and dropping several mixtapes and projects on his own.

In July 2015, Lanez released the first single off of his debut album entitled ‘Say It’. The record did extremely well commercially, peaking on several charts in the United States and Canada. Also, he revealed a new deal with Benny Blanco’s record label, Mad Love Records, and Interscope Records. He later released his debut album which featured 14 tracks entitled, ‘I Told You’, the following year on August 19, 2016.

Lanez’s next album was ‘Memories Don’t Die’, which was released on March 2nd, 2018. The album included 18 tracks including the singles “B.I.D.”, “Shooters”, “Skrt Skrt”, “Real Thing”, and “I Sip”. It debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 and number three on the US Top R&B/Hip Hop Album charts.

Over his career span, Lanez has released a total of 4 albums, ‘I Told You’ (2016), ‘Memories Don’t Die’ (2018), ‘Love Me Now’ (2018), ‘Chixtape 5’ (2019) and 15 mixtapes. Lanez’s music is available on all major and minor music streaming platforms.