So late Sunday afternoon our friends at Ottawa Bluesfest posted a teaser video, hinting at the BIGGEST headliner yet for this July’s festival.
Kanye West
We can now confirm that Kanye West will headline RBC Royal Bank Bluesfest on July 10.
Like him or not Kanye West is one of the world’s best-selling artists of all time, having sold more than 21 million albums and 66 million digital downloads. He has won a total of 21 Grammy Awards, making him one of the most awarded artists of all-time and the most Grammy-awarded artist of his age. Time named West one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2005 and 2011. He has also been included in a number of Forbes annual lists. Three of his albums rank on Rolling Stone’s 2012 “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” list; two of his albums feature at #8 and #1 in Pitchfork Media’s The 100 Best Albums of 2010-2014.
In 2013 West announced he was working on his next studio album, So Help Me God, due to be released on May 1, 2015. The album teams Kanye up with several artists but two that stand out are Sir Paul McCartney and Rihanna. The album features Kanye’s song “Only One” featuring Sir Paul McCartney, the song is a tribute to West’s daughter, North. It is sung as a message to Kanye from the perspective of his late mother, Donda West. The song debuted at number 35 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the UK Singles Chart, In New Zealand, the song debuted at number 8 on the New Zealand Singles Chart, marking West’s first top ten single there since Jay-Z’s 2009 single “Run This Town”, and first top ten as a lead artist since 2008’s “Heartless”. It also marks Paul McCartney’s first charting single there since his 1993 single “Hope of Deliverance” and first top ten single since 1983’s “Say Say Say” with Michael Jackson. Following three weeks on sale in the United States, “Only One” had sold 230,000 total copies.
McCartney, Rihanna and West also recorded and released a critically acclaimed joint single called “FourFiveSeconds” for Rihanna’s upcoming album (and as a bonus track on the deluxe edition of Kanye’s So Help Me God album) the song peaked at number 4 on the US Billboard Hot 100 Chart.
Here is the video for Kanye’s single, “Only One”
For tickets, and full lineup information visit www.ottawabluesfest.ca
