I first saw BASYL when he opened for Danny Brown at Hopscotch Festival in 2024.
Before that, I only knew some of the bigger names in the Halifax hip-hop scene, the people whose legacies had already been well-defined. Unfortunately, up-and-comers were not in my purview as much at the time.
BASYL is the artist who made me realize just how much I was missing out. He was energetic. His bars flowed like water from the tap. Most importantly, he was fearless. BASYL brought a Palestinian flag up on stage and made the crowd chant “Free Palestine” at the top of our lungs. It wasn’t just an excellent performance; it felt unifying.
Since then, I’ve been following BASYL’s trajectory from an engineering student who wanted nothing more than to make music, to selling out his first headline gig and releasing an enticingly rhythmic EP, Love Bombers, earlier this year. He’s also a member of the Million Vibes Collective.
It helps that he’s a stand-up guy who has been an outspoken advocate on social issues, a fact I admire about any artist, regardless of the quality of their discography.
I reached out to BASYL earlier this year for an interview after the success of his headline performance, and he was a joy to speak with. Coming into Nova Scotia Music Week, I knew I’d have to chat with him again.
To be completely honest, we barely made it work.
BASYL was set to perform at Music Week on the Saturday night and had to do sound check. I mixed up appointment times after my previous set of interviews and was late leaving my hotel room. It turns out that when BASYL showed up for sound check, he forgot to bring his laptop, so he had to rush back to the artist area to grab it. By the time we both sat on the couch in the hallway of the Rodd Grand, we had about ten minutes to lock in an interview before he would have to get to business.
Thankfully, we made it work. The following is a conversation between BASYL and me, dated Oct. 25, at the Rodd Grand Hotel in Yarmouth during Nova Scotia Music Week. Some light editing was done for clarity.
CREAMER: How’s Music Week going so far? I know it’s your fourth time around. How’s it feel being kind of a senior in the scene?
BASYL: I know, eh? Three years in! It does feel really cool because I feel a lot more confident, especially with the one-on-one meetings. The first couple years, I was so nervous, having to like… I don’t know, I always thought if you had a five-minute meeting with somebody, you want to lock everything in now.
CREAMER: Just to pitch yourself, right?
BASYL: Yeah, and the more and more I do it, I realize it’s just about building those relationships. If the meeting is the first time you talk, you just say a little bit about yourself, learn a little bit about what they do, and hopefully, along the weekend, you run into them a few times, maybe they see you perform, and that’s how a relationship gets built. It’s not going to be from that one meeting. So, learning those kinds of things and getting more used to them have made this Music Week a lot more comfortable for me, for sure. Now knowing what I want to do as an artist and what my plan is for the next few years, helped me decide which panels are more important for me, what’s more effective and that stuff. It’s been chill so far. From that perspective, I’m having a good time because I feel a lot more confident.
CREAMER: For sure. So it’s been a good week in terms of building those connections?
BASYL: Oh, f**k yeah. Big time. I have a lot of emailing to do once I get back to the city.
CREAMER: A lot of the boring stuff afterwards.
BASYL: One-hundred percent.
CREAMER: I know you’re performing tonight with a pretty stacked line-up.
BASYL: Yeah. so. I’m doing my own individual performance at Haley’s Lounge, hope you can make it. That’s going to be really dope. I’m getting all my rapping dark stuff out of the way. Of course, at the end of the night, we’re closing. All the Million Vibes boys and girls, we’re doing the finale of Music Week, which feels so cool to have. Usually, it’s like Rankin MacInnis and his band, and they’re a legendary band, so to get that closing spot was very, very cool, even though I think we got it because Rankin was busy that day. But you know, it’s the small wins.
CREAMER: But still, it’s a sick opportunity.
BASYL: Last year, we did it off the top. Unexpectedly, KAYO (another artist in the Million Vibes Collective and a Music NS award winner), he put his name on a ballot, I think, and they just picked somebody to do the closing show, or one of the slots in it. He was only supposed to do a 15-minute DJ set and a few songs here and there, but he ended up mobbing the stage. We took over the entire f**king stage. Last year was truly a pivotal moment for all of us, because we got to do what we do in the studio, only on stage, where we’re all singing each other’s songs. It was just crazy. The whole crowd, delegate or not, everybody just turned into an audience that was having, like, a truly spectacular time. It was one of those “you had to be there.” So, anyways, to be able to do it this year a little more organized, a little more planned, and now it’s being advertised as the closing finale of Music Week, it feels so f**king cool. I’m definitely excited for that, and like, it’s going to be a huge success.
CREAMER: As someone who is new to, you know, getting into the Halifax hip-hop community, do you find Music Week is helping strengthen those connections there, too? It feels like you folks are fairly tight-knit at this point.
BASYL: It definitely creates connections between everybody as a whole, but when it comes to our connection, the Million Vibes Collective specifically, we’ve been tight since day one. We’ve been friends through the music, through collaboration. Collaboration in the studio, going to each other’s shows, supporting each other, and showcasing together. Creating our own shows, as well. We just naturally are friends. The chemistry is there, so once we started making music together, it’s like, now we’re, you know, doing shows together. The energy was always there. There was two pivotal moments that made us like, OK, we are now officially going by the Million Vibes Collective, and these are the members and all that stuff. One time, we got booked by Hopscotch Festival in Halifax as the Million Vibes Collective, instead of us individually. That was the moment we all looked around and was like, is that how we look from the outside? Internally, we’re just hanging out. Externally, I guess people look at us as Million Vibes. That was cool, and then last year, when we did the Million Vibes set at Music Week. That kind of solidified, like, OK, we have something here that is bigger than a crew of music. Usually crews, there’s like one lead guy and the rest of them just kind of sit there, but with us, we’re all lead guys and girls.
CREAMER: I believe that Million Vibes is up for several awards. I know that you’re up for an award, as well.
BASYL: Yeah, for the first time. This is my first nomination. Whether I win it or not, I’m glad, and if I don’t win it, most likely KAYO would, so it’s still a win for the team. Million Vibes is like…I forgot which one it’s nominated for. Entertainer of the Year?
CREAMER: Isn’t there three or four? Was there a few?
BASYL: In total, we have like ten nominations.
CREAMER: Oh s**t.
BASYL: There was a post we did, let me just check. I think there were eight or ten nominations. Yeah, ten nominations. I have Hip-Hop/Rap Recording of the Year. Oh, KAYO has five nominations. Of course. (Alone, KAYO had four nominations).
CREAMER: Yes, yeah, that’s right. I think he has the most nominations out of, like, any individual. (Morgan Toney led him by five nominations.)
BASYL: So the Million Vibes Collective actually has two. The Live Sector Award and the Artistic Development Award. So, then Stak, who is a producer but is also kind of like the founder of Million Vibes, is up for Emerging Industry Professional of the Year. I think that would be dope. One of the producers we work with mostly, his name is Nulo, he created some of the bigger Million Vibes collaborations, so he’s up for a Sound Tech and Production Award. So, yeah, between all of us, ten nominations. We should at least get five, right?
CREAMER: Yeah, I mean, come on. At least. I know you recently did this Halifamous session. I saw it on Instagram the other day.
BASYL: You saw that?
CREAMER: Yeah, that was cool, man.
BASYL: Dude, that was so cool. The first one was Laura Roy, who is absolutely f**king amazing. When he asked me—Greg Bates, he’s the guy who runs Halifamous—so when he asked me to do it, I was like, “me?” OK, sure. That was so good. It came together so well, and I’m really thankful for Quoia States, because Quoia came on, like… I did a rehearsal two days before the recording, and I realized I need a female vocalist. I hit her up, and she was able to pull through, and I think she elevated the entire performance, for sure. My song has Alicia Keys parts in it, so she was able to do that, but there was some technical stuff that I just had to accept. It was my first time doing a (recorded) live performance, so it was a little bit tricky to do, and I can’t wait to do another live performance and record it.
CREAMER: It’s such an interesting format, and like, obviously Tiny Desk Concerts have really elevated that to be a thing, right?
BASYL: Yeah, for sure. So, I did two songs. I did “Conversations” which got posted, and we’re posting my latest release, “chill fr”, so we did that as well. Funny enough, I was dog-sitting at the time, so there’s a big ass dog in the video the whole time. It just made my day. It was so wholesome.
CREAMER: That’s awesome. Speaking of “chill fr”, last time we chatted, that was either on the cusp of coming out, or it might’ve just come out. How have reactions been to that track?
BASYL: Even though on streaming it’s not performing that well, in real life that song is going off, bro. I have people all the time messaging me how they can’t stop listening to the song. People that I know, people that I don’t know. On Spotify, it has a high ratio of listeners to streams, so the people that are listening, they are listening at least four times. Every month, a listener listens to that song at least four times, versus my other songs. So, feedback on that song? It’s been so good. I definitely think it’s my best song out right now, and that’s just based off of the response from people. Streaming is not doing so well, but I shot my best music video for that, too, and I thought that music video was sick. The real people in real life thought it was sick and absolutely loved it. I know it’s cliche to say, but people are loving that song.
CREAMER: I’ve just got one more question for you, and it’s just for fun, so if you don’t have an answer, it’s OK. Who is the best hip-hop artist of all time?
BASYL: Of all time?
CREAMER: Yeah, who’s the GOAT?
BASYL: S**t. Kendrick Lamar.
CREAMER: F**king rights he is, yeah.
BASYL: I’m a huge fan of him, but even if I look objectively, it’s hard to find somebody who checks so many of those boxes. He’s cool, he’s got morals, he’s a man of the people, he’s for the culture… It’s Kendrick Lamar. He’s the GOAT.
CREAMER: Yeah, man. I think that’s the right answer.