I fell in love with hip hop around 2013 when I listened to my first rap album, Drake’s Nothing Was the Same. To me, hip hop is an art of storytelling, rooted in struggle and triumph. It has its haters and it is not perfect, but it has also saved and changed countless lives.
In the tradition of the 1970s New York City DJs and MCs that founded the genre, the guardians of modern hip hop are innovative, creative and heartfelt. Anyone can pick up the mic and tell their stories. As fans, we just need to turn up the volume on game-changing artists.
Buddah Abusah is a Hamilton-born and raised creator spreading a message of peace and love. He began writing at the age of 11 and rapping seriously at the age of 16. Haviah Mighty is a Toronto-born, Brampton-raised musician who is also a member of the rap group The Sorority. She began rapping at the age of 12, combining her seven years of singing lessons with her newfound interest in hip hop.
I spoke separately to these two local rappers about their thoughts on hip hop. Both artists spoke about the importance of the genre not only because of the music, but because of the culture.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bo7s8IlnRTJ/
Buddah Abusah: My inner city message is letting all artists know that no matter where you're from, [as] long as you put your mind to it, you can be successful in your way. [I want to] show people [that if you] put your mind to it and indulge yourself properly, you can get yourself to that gold, platinum status [that] Canadians are doing more often now. Also… the message I want to give out is that all my music is to peace, love and equality. No matter what goes down, just treat it with peace and love because at the end of the day that's what everybody needs.
Haviah Mighty: I definitely like to pull from the rawest, truest points of my life to try to create the most effective message possible, which is usually the things that are most important to me. The narrative will always change based on the shifting of the energies around us and things that are happening. But I would definitely say… just being a Black female, I am political in nature. The hair that I have, the skin tone that I have, the gender that I am and what I chose to do for a career are to some people very oxymoronic. I think naturally just my look and my delivery and my vibe is a little bit of an empowering, stepping out of your element, believing in your true self kind of message before even opening my mouth. I don't think that's something I can really escape or run from and I'm actually very happy to naturally represents that. I feel that people around me resonate with that.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt8_KYXAXM5/
BA: Best part is the growth. For me I love seeing individuals or an individual put their mind to something and watch it come into fruition. Right now I'm doing that with a couple people/groups. I've worked with some of them in the past and just watching them help the culture of [Hamilton] is the best part because I know this city will get there. Like everybody knows the city is growing. And it'll be interesting seeing Hamilton have their own culture and their own sound like how Toronto has their own sound. Hamilton is far enough where we see Toronto and we want to be like the [greater Toronto area] and be included like the GTA, but we still want our own.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BorVUiiHLRt/
HM: The best part of the hip hop community is the community. I think hip hop is very cultural and the community is very culture-based… [W]ithin hip hop in my experience, you can go to different venues and it's like these are people that you've grown up with because at the cultural level, you guys are so connected. It might be the same for punk music and rock and stuff [but] I'm not as embedded in those communities to know. I think for me it's the beautiful marriage between the sonic vibe of hip hop and then just like the community of hip hop and how different yet similar those two things are.
BA: I'm going to be releasing new material spring, summer time. I've just been working with other artists, doing some production, audio engineering. And other than that, I'm just taking my sweet, sweet time. I'm not trying to [give] you the exact same trap sound that you're always hearing on the radio or that your friends play. I'm here giving you something completely different. I'm giving you good vibes, I'm giving you vibes for strictly hippies… My goal with this is creating an entirety of a sound for the city.
HM: I have an album coming out. I'm hoping that this can really open up some interesting conversations. I'm really hoping that we can see some shifts in female hip hop and what we expect from being a female in hip hop and what we expect from I guess just the gender expectations. I would love to see some of those surpassed with some of the stuff I'm coming out with. But definitely just trying to contribute positively to the hip hop community and that hip hop culture and to tell good, impactful stories that can make some good change.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bp-dJixASg6/
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What a time to be alive indeed. If you’re not a corny old-head who thinks the height of rapping is astute grasp lyricism, your favourite rappers right now are probably Future and Drake. With the pair coming off of absolutely massive years in which their only competition has been each other, it makes sense that they’d pool their star power together link up for a full-length project.
Although Drake was effusive in his praise for Future at OVO Fest, no one could have seen this one coming and the internet was thrown into a frenzy by the announcement. Recorded in a week in Atlanta, What A Time To Be Alive bears the marks of its impromptu creation, but still boasts a fair bit of quality.
Whenever Drake has linked up with Future on tracks like “Tony Montana” and “Shit,” the pair’s joint efforts have always seemed a tad disjointed. While getting in the studio together may have brought them closer as friends, it hasn’t helped their scant chemistry in the booth. Certifiable stars in their own respective lanes, when the two get together on a track it can sometimes feel forced.
Take the mixtape opener, “Digital Dash.” Future immediately entrances listeners with some mumbled lyrics and ad-libs, but we’re left waiting for Drake’s verse, which is slotted into the last minute. “Big Rings” is quite awkward at best, with Drake drowning in the swells of the beat and his own shoddy hook.
Things pick up on “Live From The Gutter,” where the two MC’s seem to find their rhythm before they absolutely crush the next song, “Diamonds Dancing.” It’s the first track that seems them working in tandem rather than just tacking on their own bars to the end.
Perhaps an ode to Drake’s deal with Jordan, “Jumpman” is the clear standout of the mixtape and not just because of Metro Boomin’s insane production. The song boasts amazing one-liners like “chicken wings and fries, we don’t go on dates” and “jumpman” is really fun to say consecutively.
WATTBA is not without its flaws, but they are more ideological than technical. Both rappers will remain problematic favourites for their fans, with the pair still degrading women to no end. In many a way, they have both risen to mainstream fame via their misogyny; Drake with the boo-hoo nice-guy simping that has made millions of bros believe the friend zone is a thing, and Future with more rampant hatred like the pettiness found on Monster, the mixtape he made following his very public breakup with Ciara (see “Throw Away” for a brilliantly tortured five-minute summary of their relationship).
We must also must have willingness to listen to the black male experience and attempt to understand where there pain is coming from rather than just critique how it is expressed. Very often, the angst that they are misguidedly dumping upon the women in their lives is motivated by familial and financial loss. One only has to look to “Blow A Bag”, a single from Future’s Dirty Sprite 2 to grasp this. On the anthemic track full of boasting, Future takestime in the first verse to expose some of his personal demons: “I know I came from poverty, I got my name from poverty, I know for sure, for sure, if my granddad was livin’, I know he be proud of me.” That said, one can always hope that artists would find a better place to dump their frustrations than on the backs of women who suffer enough at the hands of patriarchal society.
If you can excuse the cringe-worthy chauvinism, you’ll be able to appreciate the few really good bangers that the tape yielded. Think of it less as an album and more of a stocking stuffer to compliment the massive presents that Future and Drake’s full-length solo projects were to music fans this past year.
Shane Madill
The Silhouette
People who dislike Drake tend to be very vocal about their opinion. People disagree with him being the face of contemporary hip-hop and people disagree with his credibility given his background. Yet, to deny that there is a lack of talent present in all of his records and to deny that he is constantly developing is simply incorrect.
Nothing Was the Same represents two of Drake’s personas. One side is the man who wants to brag about his newfound success and believes that this success is warranted. The other side is the man who knows this is stupid to do and still struggles with issues of isolation and abandonment, leading to oversensitive sentiments about women who do commit.
His interpretation of his success does not concern how a successful actor who was raised in Forest Hill managed to get his foot in the music industry’s door, but rather how a Jewish Canadian high school dropout from a broken family managed to climb to the top of the music world.
He embraces and writes about very personal, but very common issues, and brings this to the forefront constantly in his songs. Most tend to be turned off by the subject matter of “Drake,” as shown by the typical complaints about him. But moving past this reveals a more sensitive and internally conflicted side of hip-hop that is rarely explored, and rarely to this quality.
Drake’s flow and his ear for beats are two of the most noticeable improvements over his previous studio albums, Take Care and Thank Me Later. On the highlights of Nothing Was the Same his delivery is sharp, quick, and accented by brilliant production from long-time collaborator Noah “40” Shebib. Even on lyrically unsubstantial songs, like “Started From The Bottom” and the majority of “Worst Behaviour,” the beat is instantly recognizable and enjoyable every time it cycles through your playlist.
However, Drake’s lyricism is a lot more inconsistent relative to Take Care. For every, “After hours of II Mulino/Or Sotto Sotto, just talking to women and vino/The contract like ’91 Dan Marino/I swear this got Michael Rapinos boosting my ego” there is an equal and opposite “Girl don’t treat me like a stranger/Girl you know I seen ya naked.” Though understanding and respecting his perspective and intent helps one to gloss over this, these sorts of lines are just sloppy in comparison and stop the album from reaching greatness. You may remember Nothing Was the Same for the beats or for some interesting wordplay, but there is no doubt that you will also remember these unfortunate low points.
3/5
By Samhita Misra
In the days that I used to be an avid blogger, I had a pet peeve. And that pet peeve was bloggers who posted editorials, look-books, collections or daily “inspiration.” I get it - once and a while you’re really busy, your inspiration has literally run dry and you know all your followers are going to love the new Mario Testino editorial with Karlie Kloss. (Note: I exclude mostly original content creators, writers and collage-makers from this group). So, why not guarantee a few comments without having to do much work?
Well, because there are those who despite their subpar resources – such as dated laptops and ancient digital cameras - go out and make their own stuff, or conceptualize each post, which requires a lot more thought than mindlessly digging through fashiongonerogue. I felt like this for a while, until at last, Drake himself put my sentiments to words:
“I’m really scared for my generation, you know. The thing that scares me most is Tumblr. I hate what Tumblr has become…Instead of kids going out and making their own moments, they’re just taking these images and living vicariously through other people’s moments. It just kills me.” And before it was killing Drake, it was killing the independent blogger spirit.
When you think of bloggers who consistently post material that isn’t theirs, if it’s not theirs, then whose is it? Using the case of fashion, since it is one of the top three Tumblr tags, these images belong to the likes of Style.com, Vogue, TeenVogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle and Marie Claire, owned by media conglomerates Condé Nast and Hearst Corporation, respectively.
To make matters worse, although Condé Nast does not allow their media properties to share content, rival Hearst Corporation, does. This means they can save money by sharing the same photographer, writer or videographer at the cost of limiting perspective and the diversity of content. Given that media content is already controlled by the few, reblogging their photos is really just perpetuating the status quo, especially since according to Tumblr CEO David Karp, fashion-related Tumblr posts are reblogged on a much greater scale than general Tumblr posts.
So, how exactly is this crushing the independent blogger spirit? For starters, it defeats the purpose of digitization, supposedly eliminating entry barriers to the media market by blurring the line between producer and consumer in what is known as the “prosumer.” It was supposed to be all about regular people fighting corporations with their own materials and giving the market variety. Instead, we’re using our Tumblr accounts to reblog unoriginal content owned in one form or another by conglomerates. This might give us instant gratification, a few more followers, notes or comments, and corporations free advertising platforms and dominance. It’s ironic given how much we complain about how pervasive advertising is when we willingly spread it ourselves.
A lot of this is rooted in the fact that sharing is fundamental to the micro-blogging experience that is Tumblr. It takes away the incentive to do it yourself; there is no need to with the plethora of high-quality images at your fingertips. It’s the same thing that happened way back, when the introduction of the written word discouraged people from memorizing the stories they were used to, because they didn’t have to anymore.
Despite the fact that ‘we don’t have to,’ if original and diverse content matters enough to us, we’ll listen to Drake and start making our own moments.
