Stevie Stone plays Kansas City for the first time since 2016

The Columbia, Missouri, rapper and longtime Strange Music signee headlines recordBar on Sunday, Nov 22, with Kutt Calhoun and JL B. Hood.

The last time Stevie Stone headlined a Kansas City show, it was Sept 24, 2016, at the Riot Room. A decade’s worth of change later, he’s back. On Sunday, Nov 22, Stone plays recordBar, with Kutt Calhoun and JL B. Hood on the bill and the show starting at 7 p.m. The date was announced Oct 13, and tickets are through OpenDate.

For Kansas City, Stone is a familiar name. Born Stephen Lewis Williams in Columbia, Missouri, he spent a decade, from 2011 to 2021, signed to Strange Music, the independent rap label Tech N9ne built here, according to his Wikipedia entry. Before that he made his first impact as part of Ruthless Records, per Strange Music’s own spotlight on him.

His Strange run produced a steady string of records: Rollin’ Stone in 2012, 2 Birds 1 Stone in 2013 and Malta Bend in 2015, the last named for a small town in his home state, as he discussed in an interview with the label. Level Up followed, and KCUR named him its Band of the Week around that release in 2017. In 2019 he put out Set in Stone I.

A decade of change later, he’s back on a Kansas City stage.

Then came the biggest shift. In 2021 Stone announced he had left Strange Music, and he has since founded his own label, Ahdasee Records. So the artist who walks onto recordBar’s stage is not quite the one Kansas City last saw at the Riot Room. He is running his own operation now, independent of the label that made his name in this city, and this show is a chance to see what that looks like up close.

That is what makes this return worth paying attention to. Kansas City has a deep connection to Strange Music and its roster, and Stone’s years with the label tied him to this town even though he’s a Columbia native. Coming back as an independent artist, on his own terms, is a different kind of homecoming.

recordBar is a good room for it. It holds about 399, small enough that the crowd and the stage feel like one space, and big enough to get loud. A Sunday-night hip-hop show with a three-act bill is the kind of thing the room does well.

What to know before you go: it’s a 7 p.m. start on a Sunday, so plan for an early night by club standards. With three acts on the bill, show up on time if you want to catch the openers. And with a 399-capacity room and a ten-year gap since his last local headline show, there’s no reason to wait on tickets.

Ten years is a long time in rap. Stone has changed labels, built his own, and kept making records. Kansas City gets to hear where all that has landed, on a Sunday night in November.

Sources: Stevie Stone (Wikipedia) (en.wikipedia.org); Independent Spotlight: Stevie Stone (Strange Music) (newblog.strangemusicinc.com); Stevie Stone Malta Bend interview (Strange Music) (newblog.strangemusicinc.com); KCUR's Band Of The Week: Stevie Stone (kcur.org)