Red City is the sophomore album from City Natives, an ECMA-winning hip-hop crew composed of four Mi’kmaq and Maliseet MCs hailing from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The album dropped at the end of September. Red City features tracks with strong beats, earworm hooks, regional shoutouts and sincere lyrics about getting paid for doing what […]
hip hop
Posted inArts + Music
Fully RealEyez
“This is the craziest thing I’ve ever done in my life—putting out an album,” RealEyez (AKA Erin Dorrington) says as she sits in a sunny north end cafe. It’s hard not to get swept up in her excitement. Warm and enthusiastic, throughout the conversation Dorrington tells some harrowing facts about her past, but brushes the […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Is Corey Wright the wrong man?
My blood is my ink / My tears are my tales / I did a couple years in jail / But I shall prevail —rhymes by Corey Wrght AKA Vinny Deniroz He smiled. Big smile. “What you doing after?” It was nudging four in the morning on Saturday, November 4, 2006, closing time at Rain, […]
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Three Sheet
A spirited, thoughtful MC, Expedyte’s verses can get wordy at times. Occasionally he sounds hurried, behind the beat. But he nails it on, for example, “Norm Now.” Vanessa Furlong delivers throughout the album, particularly “Blood Whale” and “How it Goes.” Halifax’s Three Sheet has got something. They’ve got a human beatbox, EMC, but no kit—that […]
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D-Sisive moment
Everywhere Toronto-based rapper D-Sisive goes, Orville Knoblich follows.”That character plays a major part as far as the visuals are concerned,” says D-Sisive, otherwise known as Derek Christoff. So, musically, he’s D-Sisive. But visually, he’s Orville Knoblich, decked out in tuxedo, bowler and ostrich mask. Think of the figure, who appears onstage and on album covers, […]
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Ghettosocks’ tasty Treat
Halifax-based MC Ghettosocks went from updating his Facebook profile and Twitter account with his “treat of the day,” to basing the concept of his new album, aptly titled Treat of the Day, around the idea. “I was kind of compelled to do this treat-of-the-day thing,” says Ghettosocks, AKA Darren Pyper. “For albums I get on […]
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Alpha Dogg
If you happen to walk past the Metro Centre and have a Woodstock seizure at the scent emerging, don’t fret, the hippies didn’t win. It’s merely Snoop Dogg taking his patented mid-set chronic break. Tickets are $44.50 to $54.50 (gin and juice sold separately). Many are unaware that Snoop Dogg’s real name is Cordazar Calvin […]
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It’s all Something Good
Markit and Boy-ill are close. They’ve been friends for over a dozen years, following each other throughout HRM’s schools, basketball teams and later forming the hip-hop group Fax 4 with fellow MCs Spesh K and Quake, as well as being roommates. Their latest collaboration, Something Good, sees them working more closely together despite the fact […]
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Three Sheet heat
Firefighters in full uniform jump from a red truck parked outside Elephant & Castle. The shrill fire drill still screams from the now-empty basement where a diverse mix of Three Sheet addicts thrives on the hip-hop group every Thursday night. “I wore my nice bra,” singer Vanessa Furlong says loudly over the buzz of 50 […]
Posted inArts + Music
D-Sisive
The hip-hop underground can be a place of pain. With Let the Children Die, Toronto-based and Polaris Prize-nominated D-Sisive proves this to be true. Beats are slow and steady. The low end rules—see the bass and organ samples on “Song to Sing” and “Riot I Caused,” featuring Classified. Production is minimal and moody. Winter imagery […]
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Three Sheet not limited to hip hop
“If you owed me $2.50 I’d say you owed me a 2.50-sheet,” says Matt Kliffer, lyricist and beatboxer. “It’s something that has yet to exist, it’s not printed by the government. We’re our own kind of currency.” Three Sheet—Kliffer (AKA Expedyte), bassist Kevin Tilley, beatboxer EMC (Eric McIntyre), guitarist Ryan O’Quinn and vocalist Vanessa Furlong—have […]
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Reading Classified’s Self Explanatory
Luke Boyd feels like a regular guy, though some things in his life have changed. While his picture’s being taken for this article, a surly man in a black leather jacket watches. During the interview, the man sits in the room, silently reading a paper. Daniel Robichaud is Sony’s regional promotion manager for the Atlantic […]