It’s a sunny day in Enfield, and life is good. Luke Boyd—better known as rapper Classified—is hours away from premiering his newest album, the 11-track Luke’s View, and he’s taking a moment to soak it all in. It’s a rare occasion for the 46-year-old, even in a career that has afforded plenty. Nearly 30 years since Boyd broke onto the music scene with the self-released Time’s Up, Kid, and after a career that has brought a JUNO Award, collaborations with rap idols Snoop Dogg and Raekwon and a bestselling book, to boot, the Nova Scotian emcee still gets bewildered from time to time by it all.
“I’ve got a line in one of my albums, I figured by 25, I’d be finished; I never really thought it would last this long,” he says, speaking by phone with The Coast. “I think it still comes back to doing something I love.”
And while Classified admits that he “tried to retire a few times” over the years, he still has that spark in him—the same love for hip hop that once led him, at 15 years old, to rapping over Naughty by Nature’s “Hip Hop Hooray” at a Hants East Rural High dance. Three decades later, Luke’s View offers more than enough of the old Classified—and the new one—to satisfy fans new and old.
“I had to figure it out my whole way”
From the beginning, Classified has had a strong do-it-yourself ethic. When record labels weren’t interested in his earliest offerings, he formed Halflife Records and put the albums out himself. A then-teenaged Boyd ordered his own cassette tapes. Cut and printed the labels at Kinko’s. Booked and promoted his own shows. He still writes and produces all of his own music—all of which he records from his home studio in Enfield.
“I was a young kid that just liked making hip hop,” he told an interviewer in 2013, “but I always felt like I was kind of that outsider, that young kid coming up, and a lot of people didn’t really get what I was trying to do or like what I was doing. It was always kinda me feeling what I was doing, liking what I was doing. And I just kept doing it.”
Those early experiences proved useful. Especially as the music industry shifted from record labels and promotion deals to artists building direct-to-listener relationships.
“That’s kind of why I think I can still do this,” he tells The Coast. “Some artists, they could sign to labels and get dropped and it’s over; they just don’t know what to do. But I had to figure it out my whole way.”
On Luke’s View, that independent, march-to-the-beat-of-your-own-drum ethos comes out in songs like “Sure Enough” and “The Hardy Boys.” The former sees Classified teaming up with Juice Crew rapper Masta Ace for a trap song—a “bit of a different sound” for both artists, Boyd says—while the latter reunites Class with brother Mike Boyd for a back-and-forth that takes a playful page from the likes of Method Man and Redman.
If Classified doesn’t lack confidence (“Stats and accolades, what, you ain’t know?” he raps on “Sure Enough”), then he’s also long made a name for his candidness. Throughout his career, Boyd has endeared himself to his listeners with songs like “All About U” and “Things Are Looking Up,” offering an honesty—and unflinching introspection—that isn’t always found in hip hop. Credit Haligonian hip hop legend Jorun Bombay for playing an early part in that.
“I’d show him records when I was like 15, rapping about guns and shit,” Classified told The Come Up Show, “and he was like, ‘Do you actually do this shit?’ And I was like, ‘No.’ He’s the one who really taught me about being myself in music.”
That willingness to pull back the curtain continues on Luke’s View with songs like “All Wrong” and “Wonder,” which see Classified reflect on old friendships, lost loved ones and paths not taken. (“I wonder if I did this right,” he raps on the latter.)
That candidness extends to Class divulging on “Wonder” that he and his wife had a miscarriage: A loss that, while common—about one in five pregnancies end in one—is still scarcely talked about.
“The amount of people that even asked me about that line—it’s just obviously something a lot of people have gone through in life,” he tells The Coast, “and it was just one of those things … that [was] important for me to kind of get off my chest.”
It’s a mark of Boyd’s comfort in his own skin that he offers it up on the record—and it’s in these snapshots of vulnerability that Luke’s View shines most.
The album that almost wasn’t
Classified wasn’t planning on a record. Not at first, anyway. He’d stopped going to the studio during the COVID-19 pandemic, until he realized he missed the routine of it all. And even then, he didn’t have an album in mind. He’d already flirted with retirement before.
“I thought [I’d stop] at the end of Greatful, honestly,” he says. “If you listen to the last song on that album, I go through and thank everybody in my career, because I was like, ‘Man, this is it. I’m almost 40; I’ve rapped about everything.’ What else am I going to rap about, you know?
“And then, two months after sitting at home, you start getting bored.”
The same creative itch brought Luke’s View to life.
“I was just kind of making songs,” he says. Over time, four songs became six. Then eight. Then 11.
“I was like, ‘Okay, I’ll put something out now.’”
Pair of shows at The Shore Club ahead
It’s been a fun spring for Classified. At the end of March, he headlined a JUNO Block Party show on Halifax’s waterfront. There, he brought out Canadian hip hop pioneer Choclair and shared the stage with collaborators David Myles, O’Sound and JRDN. Three days later, he introduced his friend and idol Maestro Fresh Wes during the JUNO Awards. (‘Stro became the first hip hop artist inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.) That same night, he closed down a late-night afterparty with Kardinal Offishall and Nova Scotia’s own Skratch Bastid.
“That shit was crazy,” he tells The Coast. “I’ve never seen a Canadian hip hop night like that with different eras. Maestro would do a song or two, then Kardi would do a song or two—and nothing was planned; we were just all there. I’d do a song, and then Press would do a song, and Haviah Mighty. And then Nelly Furtado showed up.
“We went on a family vacation like three days after the JUNOs, and I was still not right for three days into that vacation … I haven’t done four nights like that until 4am in a long time. But it was worth it.”
Now, Class is gearing up for a pair of June shows at The Shore Club in Hubbards, where he’ll perform songs from Luke’s View for the first time in Nova Scotia. The Saturday, June 22 show sold out within four hours, while limited tickets are available for Friday, June 21.
“We’ve been playing there every summer for the last four, five years,” he says. “It’s like Hitch Hikin’ Music on tour: 600 people in a club that’s on a campground … It’s dirty, but dirty in a good way. People let their hair down. They get loose, and people just have a great time.”
As for how Classified will celebrate the new album? The same way he does most of his music: With the people closest to him.
“I don’t want to sit in the club and watch people listen to my album for the first time,” he laughs.
“We’ll go over to my parents’ and have a little party over there. That’ll be the celebration.”
